Immigration is commonly considered to be selective of more able individuals. Studies comparing the educational attainment of Mexican immigrants in the United States to that of the Mexican resident population support this characterization. Upward educational attainment biases in both coverage and...

International migration is one of the most important choices that individuals and households in poor countries can make to increase their lifetime wellbeing. This choice presents a severe challenge to researchers attempting to learn the impacts of migration, since those who choose to move...

Do information flows matter for remittance behavior? We design and implement a randomized control trial to quantitatively assess the role of communication between migrants and their contacts abroad on the extent and value of remittance flows. In the experiment, a random sample of 1,500 migrants...

Several post-Soviet states have introduced policies to improve the relative economic, political or social position of formerly disadvantaged populations. Using one example of such policies – “Kazakhisation†in Kazakhstan – we investigate their impact on the comparative...

This paper evaluates the welfare impact of observed levels of migration and remittances in both origins and destinations, using a quantitative multi- sector model of the global economy calibrated to aggregate and firm-level data on 60 developed and developing countries. Our framework accounts...

This paper documents the influence of diaspora networks of highly-skilled individuals – i.e., inventors – on international technological collaborations. Using gravity models, it studies the determinants of the internationalization of inventive activity between a group of...

We investigate the effectiveness of Arizona’s omnibus immigration law SB1070, which made it a misdemeanor crime for an alien to not carry proper documentation and asked police to determine the immigration status of any person suspected of being an illegal alien during a lawful stop. We...

We investigate the effectiveness of Arizona’s omnibus immigration law SB1070, which made it a misdemeanor crime for an alien to not carry proper documentation and asked police to determine the immigration status of any person suspected of being an illegal alien during a lawful stop. We...

Using survey information about characteristics of personal contacts linked with administrative register information on employment status one year later, I show that unemployed survey respondents with many employed acquaintances have a higher job finding rate. Settlement in a socially deprived...

Cultural diversity is a complex and multi-faceted concept. Commonly used quantitative measures of the spatial distribution of culturally-defined groups – such as segregation, isolation or concentration indexes – are often only capable of identifying just one aspect of this...