Comparing the “D.V” lottery with the point system: costs, benefits and a superior alternative

This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data

Comparing the “D.V” lottery with the point system: costs, benefits and a superior alternative

Author Info

Ruth Uwaifo (University if California, Berkeley)

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Ruth Osarenti Uwaifo Oyelere

Abstract

The diversity visa lottery popularly known as the D.V lottery is a U.S relatively new immigration policy that was shrouded with a lot of controversy at its inception in 1995. The main stated objective of this policy is to increase diversity in the U.S. However, from the policy inception, immigration specialists seriously doubted the claimed objective. They strongly believe that the congressional sponsors of the visa lottery adopted the 'diversity' mantra as a cover for a program that was actually designed to satisfy other objectives. Whether or not this claim is true is yet unanswered objectively and would be probably had to verify. In this paper, we review in details the D.V immigration policy program considering qualitatively its potential costs and benefits to the US. We then highlight in details the pros and cons of the most commonly suggested alternative to this program, the point systems. Then using simple cost/ benefit techniques, we attempt to estimate the fiscal benefit or burden of each program under certain conditions and assumptions. Finally, we propose an alternative policy that would achieve the diversity objective and dominates both policy programs for the U.S in terms of net fiscal benefit.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

Publisher Info
Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Labor and Demography with number 0509009.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 38 pages
Date of creation: 19 Sep 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0509009

Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 38
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://129.3.20.41

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (EconWPA).

Find related papers by JEL classification:
J - Labor and Demographic Economics

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

NEP-ALL-2005-09-29 (All new papers)

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

Baker, Michael & Benjamin, Dwayne, 1994. "The Performance of Immigrants in the Canadian Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 12(3), pages 369-405, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)

Full references

Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? All full texts are decentralized with the publishers, none reside on this server, thus making it possible to offer this service for free to all parties.

This page was last updated on 2009-12-2.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.