IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jitecd/v15y2006i2p173-189.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of capital mobility in illegal immigration policy

Author

Listed:
  • Subhayu Bandyopadhyay
  • Sudeshna Bandyopadhyay

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of enforcement in controlling illegal immigration in two scenarios, capital mobility and capital immobility in the host nation (for illegal immigrants). The source nation is assumed throughout to have immobility of capital. We show that the net enforcement expenditure is higher (lower) in the presence of capital mobility if the host nation is an importer (exporter) of capital at the target immigration level. Furthermore, we show that if the host nation is an exporter of capital at the point of zero enforcement (unrestricted immigration), it must have lower enforcement expenditure (compared to capital immobility) for any illegal immigration target. If it is an importer of capital at zero enforcement, there is some ambiguity. National income must be higher (lower) under capital mobility (compared to immobility) if the host nation is an importer (exporter) of capital at the target immigration level. The analysis is extended to consider endogenous determination of optimal immigration level. Under capital mobility, for a capital exporting nation, the optimal enforcement and the national income levels are higher, while the optimal immigration level is lower.

Suggested Citation

  • Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Sudeshna Bandyopadhyay, 2006. "The role of capital mobility in illegal immigration policy," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(2), pages 173-189.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jitecd:v:15:y:2006:i:2:p:173-189
    DOI: 10.1080/09638190600690879
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09638190600690879
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09638190600690879?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Antonio Spilimbergo & Gordon H. Hanson, 1999. "Illegal Immigration, Border Enforcement, and Relative Wages: Evidence from Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico Border," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1337-1357, December.
    2. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay, 2006. "Illegal Immigration and Second‐best Import Tariffs," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 93-103, February.
    3. Djajic, Slobodan, 1987. "Illegal aliens, unemployment and immigration policy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 235-249, February.
    4. Gordon H. Hanson & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2001. "Political economy, sectoral shocks, and border enforcement," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(3), pages 612-638, August.
    5. Ethier, Wilfred J, 1986. "Illegal Immigration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 258-262, May.
    6. Harris, John R & Todaro, Michael P, 1970. "Migration, Unemployment & Development: A Two-Sector Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 126-142, March.
    7. Gaytan-Fregoso, Helena & Lahiri, Sajal, 2000. "Foreign aid and illegal immigration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 515-527, December.
    8. Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu & Bandyopadhyay, Sudeshna Champati, 1998. "Illegal immigration: a supply side analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 343-360.
    9. Ethier, Wilfred J, 1986. "Illegal Immigration: The Host-Country Problem," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 56-71, March.
    10. Bond, Eric W. & Chen, Tain-Jy, 1987. "The welfare effects of illegal immigration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3-4), pages 315-328, November.
    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. Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu & Pinto, Santiago M., 2017. "Unauthorized immigration and fiscal competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 283-305.
    2. Saibal Kar & Hamid Beladi, 2017. "A Model of Smuggling and Trafficking of Illegal Immigrants with a Host Country Policy," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 698-712, August.

    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. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Howard J. Wall, 2010. "Immigration and Outsourcing: A General‐Equilibrium Analysis," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 433-446, August.
    2. Gordon H. Hanson, 2006. "Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 869-924, December.
    3. Woodland, Alan D. & Yoshida, Chisato, 2006. "Risk preference, immigration policy and illegal immigration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 500-513, December.
    4. Amin, Mohammad & Mattoo, Aaditya, 2006. "Can guest worker schemes reduce illegal migration ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3828, The World Bank.
    5. Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu & Pinto, Santiago M., 2017. "Unauthorized immigration and fiscal competition," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 283-305.
    6. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Howard J. Wall, 2010. "Immigration and Outsourcing: A General-Equilibrium Analysis," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(s1), pages 433-446, August.
    7. 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.
    8. Djajić, Slobodan & Mesnard, Alice, 2015. "Guest workers in the underground economy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 53-62.
    9. Kar, Saibal, 2016. "A brief review of the economics of illegal migration," MPRA Paper 103466, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Gordon H. Hanson & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2001. "Political economy, sectoral shocks, and border enforcement," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(3), pages 612-638, August.
    11. Facchini, Giovanni & Testa, Cecilia, 2021. "The rhetoric of closed borders: Quotas, lax enforcement and illegal immigration," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    12. Gaytan-Fregoso, Helena & Lahiri, Sajal, 2000. "Foreign aid and illegal immigration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 515-527, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Dustin Chambers & Jonathan Munemo, 2014. "Foreign Aid, Illegal Immigration, and Host Country Welfare," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 372-385, May.
    15. Slobodan Djajić, 2017. "Transit migration," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 1017-1045, November.
    16. Devadoss, Stephen & Luckstead, Jeff, 2017. "Immigration Policies and Farm Labor," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258435, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu & Bandyopadhyay, Sudeshna Champati, 1998. "Illegal immigration: a supply side analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 343-360.
    18. Kenji Kondoh, 2020. "A paradoxical immigration restriction policy for unskilled illegal immigrants," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 479-497, June.
    19. Kenji Kondoh, 2018. "Restriction policy and two co-existing types of illegal immigration," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 159-176, April.
    20. Jean-Louis Arcand & Linguère M'Baye, 2011. "Braving the waves: The economics of clandestine migration from Africa," CERDI Working papers halshs-00575606, HAL.

    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:taf:jitecd:v:15:y:2006:i:2:p:173-189. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJTE20 .

    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.