In today's globalized world, people are increasingly mobile and often need to communicate across different languages. Learning a new language is an investment in human capital. Migrants must learn the language of their destination country, but even non-migrants must often learn other languages...

Immigration is one of the most important policy debates in Western countries. However, one aspect of the debate is often mischaracterized by accusations that higher levels of immigration lead to higher levels of crime. The evidence, based on empirical studies of many countries, indicates that...

Border enforcement of immigration laws attempts to raise the costs of illegal immigration, while interior enforcement also lowers the benefits. Border and interior enforcement therefore reduce the net benefits of illegal immigration and should lower the probability that an individual will decide...

Immigrants are widely perceived to be highly entrepreneurial, contributing to economic growth and innovation, and self-employment is often viewed as a means of enhancing labor market integration and success among immigrants. Accordingly, many countries have established special visas and entry...

During the 2000s, several states adopted laws requiring employers to verify new employees' eligibility to work legally in the USA. This study uses data from the 2005-2014 American Community Survey to examine how such laws affect unauthorized immigrants' locational choices. The results indicate...

We exploit the regional variation in negative attitudes towards immigrants to Sweden in order to analyse the consequences of negative attitudes on refugees' utility from labour income and amenities. We find that attitudes towards immigrants are important: while they affect mainly the refugees'...

Using the 2006 Census, we create a continuous index that quantifies the relatedness between 1375 fields of study and 520 occupations for native-born workers and use it as the benchmark reflecting the "common" matching quality in Canadian labor markets that internationally educated immigrant...

Addressing unauthorized immigration is controversial. Countries have adopted a variety of legalization programs, ranging from temporary visa programs to naturalization. Research in the US focused on past amnesty programs finds improved labor market outcomes for newly legalized immigrants....

Besides effects on economic well-being, migration of people with distant cultural backgrounds may also have large effects on people’s cultural identity. In this paper, the identity economics of Akerlof and Kranton (2000) is applied to migration. Accordingly, it is assumed that the utility of...

Using the 2006 Canadian Census, this paper investigates the lower return to immigrants’ foreign education credentials after adjusting for their occupational matching in hosting labor markets. We develop two continuous indices that quantify the matching quality of the native-born in both...