We review the growing literature on the political economy of immigration. First, we discuss the effects of immigration on a wide range of political and social outcomes. The existing evidence suggests that immigrants often, but not always, trigger backlash, increasing support for anti-immigrant...

On February 5, 1917, the United States passed the Immigration Act of 1917, which included a test for all migrants arriving to the U.S. to prove they were literate. The Literacy Test was one of the first and few times the U.S. used a broad 'skill-based' immigration policy in an attempt to limit...

Immigration policies in western democracies have often been contrary to the policies predicted by the mainstream theory of international economics. In particular, political parties that, according to economic theory, should adopt policies beneficial for lower-income voter-constituencies, have...

We examine how the large, one-time legalization authorized by the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) has affected the scale and character of immigration to the U.S. since the late 1980s. Exploiting cross-country variation in the magnitude of the legalization shock, we find that each IRCA...

Can history shed light on the modern debate about immigration's labor market impact in high wage economies? This paper examines the relationship between migration and capital flows in the age of mass migration before 1914, the so-called first global century. It then assesses the effects of...

Over 12 million persons migrated to Canada or the United States between 1959 and 1981. Beginning in the mid?1960s, the immigration policies of the two countries began to diverge considerably: the United States stressing family reunification and Canada stressing skills. This paper shows that the...

Self-selection plays a dominant role in determining the size and composition of immigrant flows. The United States competes with other potential host countries in the "immigration market". Host countries vary in their "offers" of economic opportunities and also differ in the way they ration...

This paper shows that providing undocumented immigrants with an immigration pardon, or amnesty, increases their economic activity in the form of higher entrepreneurship. Using administrative census data linked to the complete formal business registry, we study a 2018 policy shift in Colombia...

Using data from two representative and large-scale population surveys with more than 4000 participants, we investigate the effect of randomized priming interventions on attitudes towards immigrants. We document robust null effects of these interventions under two experimental settings, across...

The economic consequences of migration are hotly debated and a main topic of recent populist movements across Europe. We analyze Polish immigration in the context of the 2004 enlargement of the European Union and find a positive and significant spillover effect of the immigrants on the number of...