Do firms employing undocumented workers have a competitive advantage? Using administrative data from the state of Georgia, this paper investigates the incidence of undocumented worker employment across firms and how it affects firm survival. Firms are found to engage in herding behavior, being...

In almost all European countries there is a wide and growing gap between the goals of national immigration policy and its actual outcomes. The main reason for the failure of national migration policies is the loss of effective competence to control today's migration flows on a national level....

This paper presents some of the many issues involved in the granting of an amnesty to illegal immigrants. Complementing studies by Chau (2001, 2003), Karlson and Katz (2003) and Gang and Yun (2006), we consider government behavior with respect to allocations on limiting infiltration (border...

In late 2005 the Commission of the European Communities has presented a policy plan on legal migration including admission procedures capable of responding promptly to fluctuating demands for migrant labour. The EU migration policy plan stresses the importance of having a coherent agreement on...

This paper analyzes how enforcement along the U.S.-Mexican border has affected the market for migrant smugglers. Using a unique dataset that links border crossing histories from illegal Mexican migrants to aggregate enforcement and punishment statistics, we find that the effect of enforcement on...

We introduce financial constraints in a theoretical analysis of illegal immigration. Intermediaries finance the migration costs of wealth-constrained migrants, who enter temporary servitude contracts to pay back the debt. These debt/labor contracts are more easily enforceable in the illegal than...

A number of developed countries have implemented guest-worker programs in recent decades. Its basic feature is the temporary presence of the foreign guest-workers. The problem with such programs is that there is little to prevent these guest-workers from entering the illegal job market and...

The debate on the immigration policies in OECD countries has turned its attention towards illegal migrants. Given that migration flows are determined by immigration laws, the probability of potential detection, penalties for unauthorised migrants and their employers, and on income differences...

This paper looks at the situation of legal immigrants who employ illegal immigrants to provide them with various services. This enables the legal immigrants to allocate more time to other work, thereby increasing their earnings. Illegal immigrants employed by legal immigrants may specialize in...

This paper presents a first attempt at understanding some of the many issues involved in the granting of an amnesty to illegal immigrants. We consider government behavior with respect to allocations on limiting infiltration (border control) and apprehending infiltrators (internal control) and...