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What Drives Immigration Amnesties?

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandra Casarico
  • Giovanni Facchini
  • Tommaso Frattini

Abstract

We develop a general model of legal and illegal immigration to understand the basic tradeoffs faced by a government in the decision to implement an immigration amnesty in the presence of a selective immigration policy. We show that two channels play an important role: an amnesty is more likely the more restricted are the occupational opportunities of undocumented immigrants and the less redistributive is the welfare state. Empirical evidence based on a novel panel dataset of legalizations carried out by a group of OECD countries between 1980-2007 broadly supports the role played by the channels identified in our theoretical model.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandra Casarico & Giovanni Facchini & Tommaso Frattini, 2012. "What Drives Immigration Amnesties?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3981, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3981
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Magris, Francesco & Russo, Giuseppe, 2016. "Fiscal Revenues and Commitment in Immigration Amnesties," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 75-90.
    2. de la Rica, Sara & Glitz, Albrecht & Ortega, Francesc, 2013. "Immigration in Europe: Trends, Policies and Empirical Evidence," IZA Discussion Papers 7778, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    illegal immigration; amnesties; labor market mismatch; welfare state;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

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