IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/reviec/v23y2015i2p387-403.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Financial Support from the Family Network and Illegal Immigration

Author

Listed:
  • Slobodan Djajić

Abstract

Barriers to immigration of low-skilled workers from developing countries into the advanced countries prevent many potential migrants from leaving their countries of origin. With very low home-country wages in relation to the cost of undocumented migration, the opportunity to migrate often hinges on the possibility of obtaining credit from a human smuggling organization or family and friends. This paper examines the conditions under which migration is optimal for an individual who lacks liquid assets, with a focus on alternative options for financing migration costs. One is by accumulating the required amount of savings out of source-country income, with or without financial support from the family or social network. The other is debt-bonded migration, which involves borrowing from a smuggling organization and paying off the loan while working in the host country. I find that greater financial support from the family network increases the attractiveness of debt-bonded relative to self-financed migration.

Suggested Citation

  • Slobodan Djajić, 2015. "Financial Support from the Family Network and Illegal Immigration," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 387-403, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:reviec:v:23:y:2015:i:2:p:387-403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/roie.12169
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raj Chetty, 2006. "A New Method of Estimating Risk Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1821-1834, December.
    2. Guido Friebel & Sergei Guriev, 2006. "Smuggling Humans: A Theory of Debt-financed Migration," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(6), pages 1085-1111, December.
    3. Djajić, Slobodan & Vinogradova, Alexandra, 2013. "Undocumented migrants in debt," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 15-24.
    4. Richard Blundell & Alan Duncan & Costas Meghir, 1998. "Estimating Labor Supply Responses Using Tax Reforms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(4), pages 827-862, July.
    5. Yuji Tamura, 2013. "Migrant smuggling when exploitation is private information," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1463-1479, November.
    6. David McKenzie & Hillel Rapoport, 2010. "Self-Selection Patterns in Mexico-U.S. Migration: The Role of Migration Networks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 811-821, November.
    7. Galenson, David W., 1984. "The Rise and Fall of Indentured Servitude in the Americas: An Economic Analysis," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(1), pages 1-26, March.
    8. Rebecca Surtees, 2003. "Female Migration and Trafficking in Women: The Indonesian context," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 46(3), pages 99-106, September.
    9. Slobodan Djajic, 2014. "Asylum Seeking and Irregular Migration," IHEID Working Papers 07-2014, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    10. Djajić, Slobodan & Vinogradova, Alexandra, 2014. "Liquidity-constrained migrants," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 210-224.
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/ir3267m2793mq59aqoimcu636 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Tamura, Yuji, 2010. "Migrant smuggling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(7-8), pages 540-548, August.
    13. Raimo Väyrynen, 2003. "Illegal Immigration, Human Trafficking, and Organized Crime," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2003-72, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Kaivan Munshi, 2003. "Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 549-599.
    15. Djajić, Slobodan, 2014. "Asylum seeking and irregular migration," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 83-95.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Slobodan Djajić & Alexandra Vinogradova, 2019. "Immigration Policies and the Choice between Documented and Undocumented Migration," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 86(341), pages 201-228, January.
    2. Slobodan Djajić, 2017. "Transit migration," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 1017-1045, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Djajić, Slobodan & Vinogradova, Alexandra, 2014. "Liquidity-constrained migrants," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 210-224.
    2. Slobodan Djajić, 2017. "Transit migration," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 1017-1045, November.
    3. Slobodan Djajić & Alexandra Vinogradova, 2019. "Immigration Policies and the Choice between Documented and Undocumented Migration," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 86(341), pages 201-228, January.
    4. Alexandra Vinogradova, 2016. "Illegal immigration, deportation policy, and the optimal timing of return," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(3), pages 781-816, July.
    5. Emmanuelle Auriol & Alice Mesnard, 2016. "Sale of Visas: a Smuggler's Final Song?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(332), pages 646-678, October.
    6. Djajić, Slobodan & Vinogradova, Alexandra, 2013. "Undocumented migrants in debt," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 15-24.
    7. Djajić, Slobodan, 2014. "Asylum seeking and irregular migration," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 83-95.
    8. Slobodan Djajić & Michael S. Michael, 2014. "Controlling Illegal Immigration: On the Scope for Cooperation with a Transit Country," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 808-824, September.
    9. Djajic, Slobodan & Kirdar, Murat G. & Vinogradova, Alexandra, 2016. "Source-country earnings and emigration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 46-67.
    10. Omar Mahmoud, Toman & Trebesch, Christoph, 2009. "The Economic Drivers of Human Trafficking: Micro-Evidence from Five Eastern European Countries," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 39939, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    11. Milo Bianchi, 2013. "Immigration Policy and Self-Selecting Migrants," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 15(1), pages 1-23, February.
    12. Omar Mahmoud, Toman & Trebesch, Christoph, 2010. "The economics of human trafficking and labour migration: Micro-evidence from Eastern Europe," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 173-188, June.
    13. Omar Mahmoud, Toman, 2010. "Shocks, income diversification and welfare in developing and transition countries," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 59754, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    14. Sarma Nayantara, 2021. "Queuing to leave: A new approach to immigration," IZA Journal of Development and Migration, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 12(1), pages 1-29, January.
    15. Olivier CHARLOT & Claire NAIDITCH & Radu VRANCEANU, 2022. "Migrant Smuggling to Europe: a Matching Model," THEMA Working Papers 2022-05, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    16. Johannes Buggle & Thierry Mayer & Seyhun Orcan Sakalli & Mathias Thoenig, 2023. "The Refugee’s Dilemma: Evidence from Jewish Migration out of Nazi Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(2), pages 1273-1345.
    17. Milo Bianchi & Paolo Buonanno & Paolo Pinotti, 2012. "Do Immigrants Cause Crime?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(6), pages 1318-1347, December.
    18. Simone Bertoli & Hillel Rapoport, 2015. "Heaven's Swing Door: Endogenous Skills, Migration Networks, and the Effectiveness of Quality-Selective Immigration Policies," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(2), pages 565-591, April.
    19. Alberto Alesina & Johann Harnoss & Hillel Rapoport, 2016. "Birthplace diversity and economic prosperity," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 101-138, June.
    20. Michèle V. K. Belot & Timothy J. Hatton, 2012. "Immigrant Selection in the OECD," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1105-1128, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:reviec:v:23:y:2015:i:2:p:387-403. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0965-7576 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.