Today's labor-scarce economies have open trade and closed immigration policies, while a century ago they had just the opposite, open immigration and closed trade policies. Why the inverse policy correlation, and why has it persisted for almost two centuries? This paper seeks answers to this dual...

Using data on 100 years of 19th century criminal trials at London's Old Bailey, this paper offers clear evidence of disparate treatment of Irish-named defendants and victims by English juries. We measure surname Irishness and Englishness using place of birth in the 1881 census. Irish-named...

Today's labor-scarce economies have open trade and closed immigration policies, while a century ago they had just the opposite, open immigration and closed trade policies. Why the inverse policy correlation, and why has it persisted for almost two centuries? This paper seeks answers to this dual...

Self‐employment constitutes a vital part of the economy since entrepreneurs can provide not only employment for themselves but also for others. The link between self‐employment and immigration is, however, complex since self‐employment can be viewed as both a haven from the paid labour...

This paper examines UK migration policy and recent migration flows from Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries to the UK. Although inflows of migrant workers were relatively large in the mid-2000s, especially amongst Ukrainians, these have fallen following changes to UK immigration policy,...

The UK's decision to leave the EU continues to have major economic, political and social implications. It is therefore unsurprising that the reasons behind Brexit have been widely discussed. However, whilst existing empirical evidence has tended to focus on specific factors, we undertake a...

We examine changes in migration to the UK in the period leading up to the Great Recession and in its immediate aftermath. In so doing, we pay particular attention to the changing countries of origin of recent migration flows to the UK, especially in relation to migration from other parts of the...

Welfare participation is an important indicator of how successfully immigrants perform in the host country. This paper examines this issue for the UK, which has experienced a large growth in its immigrant flows and population levels in recent years, especially following EU enlargement in 2004....

This paper examines UK migration policy and recent migration flows from Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries to the UK. Although inflows of migrant workers were relatively large in the mid-2000s, especially amongst Ukrainians, these have fallen following changes to UK immigration policy,...