We study the causal effect of local labor market conditions and attitudes towards immigrants at the time of arrival on refugees’ multi-dimensional integration outcomes (economic, linguistic, navigational, political, psychological, and social). Using a unique dataset on refugees, we leverage a...

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model where individuals differ in ability and location preference to evaluate the mechanisms that affect the evolution of immigrants’ careers in conjunction with their re-migration plans. Our analysis highlights a novel form of selective return...

International migration flows largely reflect demographic patterns and economic opportunities. Migration flows increase in expected income and other pull factors in potential destinations, and in push factors in the origin, like high unemployment, low wages, and high population growth. Migration...

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...

Aspirations provide the underlying dynamics of the behavior of individuals whether they are realized or not. Knowledge about the characteristics and motives of those who aspire to leave the host country is key for both host and home countries to formulate appropriate and effective policies in...

We analyze the impact of obtaining a residence permit on foreign workers' labor market and residential attachment. To overcome the usually severe selection issues, we exploit a unique migration lottery that randomly assigns access to residence permits for workers with an employment contract in...

We analyze self-selection and sorting of emigrants from Finland, using full-population administrative data from Statistics Finland. We analyze emigration events lasting at least five years and decompose migrant self-selection into education, occupation, and unobserved abilities. Our analysis...

The Roy-Borjas model predicts that international migrants are less educated than nonmigrants because the returns to education are generally higher in developing (migrant-sending) than in developed (migrant-receiving) countries. However, empirical evidence often shows the opposite. Using the case...

We present a theory on migration of dual-earner couples, and test it in the context of international migration. Our model predicts that the probability that a couple emigrates increases in the earnings of the primary earner. The effect of the earnings of the secondary earner may go either way....

We use a multilevel approach to characterize the relationship between weather shocks and (internal and international) migration intentions. We combine individual survey data on migration intentions with measures of localized weather shocks for Western African countries over 2008-2016. A...