International Immigration and Domestic Out-Migrants: Are Domestic Migrants Moving to New Jobs or Away from Immigrants?

Local area domestic migrant responses to geographically-concentrated immigration flows play central roles in determining the aggregate local economic impacts of immigration and the geography of the ethnic composition of the population . Possible motivations for domestic migrant responses include increase d labor market competition associated with new immigrants and ethnic or cultural avoidance. This paper uses U.S. annual state -to -state migration flows from the Internal Revenue Service to assess whether geographically -concentrated immigration induces domestic migrant responses. And, if so, what motivates the domestic response. The paper finds some evidence of a domestic migrant response, particularly to greater cumulative shares of the foreign born. This is interpreted as providing some support of the ethnic or cultural avoidance hypothesis.