IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/demeco/v83y2017i4p445-492_3.html

Dealing With Undocumented Immigrants: The Welfare Effects Of Amnesties And Deportations

Author

Listed:
  • Machado, Joël

Abstract

The effects on agents’ welfare of two different policies dealing with undocumented immigrants, amnesties and deportations, are assessed. I develop a two-period overlapping generations model which accounts for the ex-ante production by undocumented workers and their impact on the government budget. Additional channels, such as the discrimination on the labor market and a different productivity of regularized workers are discussed. The impact of a migration policy depends on the wage effects of the legalized/deported workers and their net fiscal contribution. The calibration of the model for the United States in 2014 allows to disentangle the channels at work. Overall, the impact of the two policies on natives’ welfare is limited (between −0.1% and +0.15%). Retired agents benefit from an amnesty and are harmed by a deportation. The effect on workers is ambiguous and depends on the wage and fiscal effects in addition to the change in the returns on savings.

Suggested Citation

  • Machado, Joël, 2017. "Dealing With Undocumented Immigrants: The Welfare Effects Of Amnesties And Deportations," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 445-492, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:demeco:v:83:y:2017:i:4:p:445-492_3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2054089217000141/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Paúl Elguezabal & Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso, 2024. "Are Immigration Regularization Programs a Pull Factor? Evidence for OECD Countries," Working Papers 2024.14, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.
    2. Carmen Camacho & Fabio Mariani & Luca Pensieroso, 2018. "Dealing with Illegal Immigration: the Role of Informality, Taxation and Trade," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2018007, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    3. Claudio Deiana & Ludovica Giua & Roberto Nisticò, 2021. "Getting Off on the Wrong Foot: The Long-Term Effects of Missing a Large-Scale Amnesty for Immigrant Workers," CSEF Working Papers 625, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    4. Mariani, Fabio & Mercier, Marion, 2021. "Immigration and crime: The role of self-selection and institutions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 538-564.
    5. Ortega Francesc & Edwards Ryan & Hsin Amy, 2018. "The Economic Effects of Providing Legal Status to DREAMers," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, June.
    6. Oded Stark & Lukasz Byra, 2020. "Can a deportation policy backfire?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 183(1), pages 29-41, April.
    7. Claudio Deiana & Ludovica Giua & Roberto Nisticò, "undated". "Legalization and Long-Term Outcomes of Immigrant Workers," Development Working Papers 480, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    8. Ortega, Francesc & Hsin, Amy, 2022. "Occupational barriers and the productivity penalty from lack of legal status," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F29 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Other
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy

    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:cup:demeco:v:83:y:2017:i:4:p:445-492_3. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/dem .

    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.