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This paper extends the utility maximization model of migration by introducing income and unemployment-related uncertainties as determinants of utility, and analyzes the effects of the in-formational advantages of migrants. The paper maintains that migration would expand an individual's economic choices and opportunities and allow diversification. Consequently, diversification advantages influence the location decisions of migrants, an effect captured by the correlation of incomes at the ori-gin and potential destinations. We use the discrete choice model based on random utility maximization as the framework for our empirical investigation of migration from the United States rural to urban counties. This paper takes advantage of an equivalent relation between the conditional logit model and Poisson regression to study the migration decisions using aggregate data among a large set of spatial alternatives. The results show that the diversification concerns have significant effects on location decisions of the rural-urban migrants in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the role of culture in determining whether, or not, an individual is a homeowner. We use data on first‐generation immigrants who arrived in the United States under 6 years old. Following the epidemiological approach, any dissimilarity in the proportion of homeowners by country of origin may be interpreted as a consequence of cultural differences. Our estimates indicate that there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between the cultural proxy and the immigrants' choice of home‐ownership. Additionally, we present evidence of different mechanisms of transmission of culture, which reinforces our results on the cultural effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper delves into the factors, which determine the attractiveness of regions in Europe for migrants. Contrary to the literature on the United States, which has increasingly focused on the role of amenities, existing research in Europe tends to highlight the predominance of economic conditions as the main drivers of migration. Differentiating between economic, sociodemographic and amenity-related territorial features, we examine the appeal of various regional characteristics for migrants by analyzing net migration data for 133 European regions between 1990 and 2006. Our results show that, in addition to economic, human capital-related and demographic aspects, network effects and-in contrast to existing literature-different types of regional amenities exert an important influence on the relative attractiveness of sub-national territories across the European Union. Our findings therefore indicate that locational choices in Europe may be much more similar to place-based preferences in the United States than originally thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper's model, undocumented workers are endogenously sorted into secondary labor markets. When further illegal immigration occurs, some new migrants follow their fellows into already migrant-dominated jobs, lowering migrant wages and raising real incomes of host-country labor and capital. Some submarkets switch from employing legal workers to employing migrants, lowering demand for and wages of legal workers. Undocumented immigration is Pareto-improving when enforcement reserves primary-sector jobs for legal workers. Pareto-dominant policies target the number of migrant-dominated submarkets, not the number of migrants. This appears consistent with U.S. enforcement practices. The effects of deportations, employer sanctions, and amnesties are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the initial location choice of legal employment-based immigrants to the United States using Immigration and Naturalization Service data on individual immigrants, as well as economic, demographic, and social data to characterize the 298 metropolitan areas we define as the universal choice set. Focusing on interactions between place characteristics and immigrant characteristics, we provide multinomial logit model estimates for the location choices of about 38,000 employment-based immigrants to the United States in 1995, focusing on the top 10 source countries. We find that, as groups, immigrants from nearly all countries are attracted to large cities with superior climates, and to cities with relatively well-educated adults and high wages. We also find evidence that employment-based immigrants tend to choose cities where there are relatively few immigrants of nationalities other than their own. However, when we introduce interaction terms to account for the sociodemographic characteristics of the individual immigrants, we find that the estimated effects of location destination factors can reverse as one takes account of the age, gender, marital status, and previous occupation of the immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This research assesses the prevalence and determinants of job-education mismatches among male immigrants in the United States between 1980 and 2009. The results suggest that educational attainment levels do not match occupational education requirements for almost half of all immigrants. Overeducation among high-skilled immigrants vastly exceeds that of comparable natives. Probit models of overeducation suggest that: (i) personal characteristics operate in similar fashion for immigrants and natives; (ii) immigrant brain waste is above average in gateway states, metropolitan areas and in prosperous high-wage areas; and (iii) proficiency in English and length of residence reduce the overeducation risk among high-skilled immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Using New Immigrant Survey data, we identify immigrants who were unauthorized to work prior to obtaining Legal Permanent Resident status, and examine whether lacking legal status to work in the United States constrains employment outcomes of illegal immigrants. The data reveal no evidence of improved employment outcomes attributable to legal status, except among the high-skilled. In light of evidence that unauthorized immigrants experienced increased wages as a result of receiving amnesty through the 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act, we interpret the results as consistent with a reduced threat of employer sanctions combined with widespread availability of false work authorization documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 1990 and 2000 U.S. census data, this study investigates changes in immigrant/native earnings disparities for workers in U.S. cities along the international border with Mexico vis-à-vis the U.S. interior during the 1990s. Our findings—based on estimating earnings functions and employing the Juhn-Murphy-Pierce (1993, JPE) wage decomposition technique—indicate that the average earnings of Mexican immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border improved relative to those accrued by their counterparts in the U.S. interior and by otherwise similar U.S.-born Mexican Americans between 1990 and 2000. However, when comparing Mexican-born workers to U.S.-born non-Hispanic whites, the immigrant border-earnings penalty remained statistically unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]