This literature review concerns the impact of immigration on the economy of the host country focusing on the experience of the United States. The emphasis is on the period from the 1970s to the 1990s. The author shows that research earlier in this period generally concluded that the economic effects of immigration were positive but that more recent research on later migrations have generally concluded that immigration may be having an adverse effect on the earnings of native unskilled workers and be placing an increased burden on welfare programs. The importance of such economic analysis for the formulation of appropriate migration policies is stressed.

http://www.kleykampintaiwan.com/files/GradEco/TheEconOfImmig.pdf

The Economics of Immigration

This is the original article, published in 2003 as a chapter in the Global Development Finance flagship report of the World Bank, that brought workers' remittances to the attention of the global development community. It highlighted that remittances provide a lifeline to many poor countries: they are larger than official development aid, they are counter-cyclical to the recipient country's economic cycle, and they can be leveraged for complementing development efforts.

/pdf/workers-remitt-ances-an-important-and-stable-source-of-121c5caz5r.pdf

Workers' Remitt ances: An Important and Stable Source of External Development Finance

http://adfdell.pstc.brown.edu/papers/mck03.pdf

Network effects and the dynamics of migration and inequality: Theory and evidence from Mexico

Millions of households in developing countries receive financial support from family members working overseas How do migrant earnings affect origin-household investments? This paper examines Philippine households%u2019 responses to overseas members%u2019 economic shocks Overseas Filipinos work in dozens of foreign countries, which experienced sudden (and heterogeneous) changes in exchange rates due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis Appreciation of a migrant%u2019s currency against the Philippine peso leads to increases in household remittances received from overseas The estimated elasticity of Philippine-peso remittances with respect to the Philippine/foreign exchange rate is 060 These positive income shocks lead to enhanced human capital accumulation and entrepreneurship in migrants%u2019 origin households Child schooling and educational expenditure rise, while child labor falls In the area of entrepreneurship, households raise hours worked in self-employment, and become more likely to start relatively capital-intensive household enterprises

International Migration, Remittances, and Household Investment: Evidence from Philippine Migrants' Exchange Rate Shocks

How do households respond to overseas members’ economic shocks? Overseas Filipinos in dozens of countries experienced sudden, heterogeneous changes in exchange rates during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Appreciation of a migrant's currency against the Philippine peso leads to increases in household remittances from overseas. The estimated elasticity of Philippine-peso remittances with respect to the exchange rate is 0.60. Positive migrant shocks lead to enhanced human capital accumulation and entrepreneurship in origin households. Child schooling and educational expenditure rise, while child labour falls. Households also work more hours in self-employment, and become more likely to start relatively capital-intensive household enterprises.

/pdf/international-migration-remittances-and-household-investment-2bosu49gug.pdf

International Migration, Remittances and Household Investment: Evidence from Philippine Migrants’ Exchange Rate Shocks*

http://essays.ssrc.org/remittances_anthology/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Topic_10_Woodruff_Zenteno.pdf

Migration networks and microenterprises in Mexico

The AA. examine continuities and changes in the profile of Mexican migration to the United States using data from Mexico's Encuesta Nacional de la Dinamica Demografica, the U.S. Census, and the Mexican Migration Project. The analysis generally yields a picture of stability over time. Mexico-U.S. migration continues to be dominated by the states of Western Mexico, particularly Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacan, and it remains a movement principally of males of labor-force age. As Mexico has urbanized, however, out-migration has come to embrace urban as well as rural workers; and as migrant networks have expanded, the flow has become less selective with respect to education. Perhaps the most important change detected was an acceleration in the rate of return migration during the early 1990s, reflecting the massive legalization of the late 1980s

Mexican immigration to the United States: continuities and changes.

Does access to capital lead to more robust investment in small scale enterprises in developing economies? We examine the effect of capital constraints on investment levels of microenterprises in Mexico. We use a survey of more than 6000 small firms located in 44 urban areas of Mexico. We focus on one important source of investment capital for Mexican entrepreneurs: earnings from migration by the owner or family members working in the United States. We estimate that remittances are responsible for almost 20% of the capital invested in microenterprises throughout urban Mexico, an additional cumulative investment capital among the firms represented by our sample of about $1.85 billion. Within the ten states with the highest rate of migration to the United States, we estimate that almost than a third of the capital invested in microenterprises is associated with remittances. In additional to showing the importance of remittances in microenterprise development, the findings suggest that access to capital is an important factor in enterprise development.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID282019_code010906670.pdf?abstractid=282019&mirid=2

Remittances and Microenterprises in Mexico

We specify a set of equations defining a dynamic model of international migration and estimate its parameters by using data specially collected in Mexico. We then used it to project the a hypothetical Mexican community population forward in time. Beginning with a stable population of 10,000 people, we project ahead 50 years under three different assumptions: no international migration; constant probabilities of in- and out-migration, and dynamic schedules of out- and in-migration that change as migratory experience accumulates. This exercise represents an attempt to model the self-feeding character of international migration noted by prior observers and theorists. Our model quantifies the mechanisms of cumulative causation predicted by social capital theory and illustrates the shortcomings of standard projection methodologies. The failure to model dynamically changing migration schedules yields a 5% overstatement of the projected size of the Mexican population after 50 years, an 11% understatement of the total number of U.S. migrants, a 15% understatement of the prevalence of U.S. migratory experience in the Mexican population, and an 85% understatement of the size of the Mexican population living in the United States.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/96/9/5328.full.pdf

The dynamics of mass migration

This article evaluates the validity of the ethnosurvey as a method of demographic data collection by analyzing the representativeness of the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) as a source of informati...

Rene Zenteno

Papers

Migration networks and microenterprises in Mexico

Mexican immigration to the United States: continuities and changes.

Remittances and Microenterprises in Mexico

The dynamics of mass migration

A Validation of the Ethnosurvey: The Case of Mexico-U.S. Migration: