IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwm/wpaper/29.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Green Cards and the Location Choices of Immigrants in the United States, 1971-2000

Author

Listed:
  • David A. Jaeger

    (Department of Economics, College of William and Mary)

Abstract

This paper documents where immigrants who enter the U.S. with different types of visas ("green cards") choose to live initially and what determines those location choices. Using population data on immigrants from the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1971 to 2000, matched to data on state characteristics from the Integrated Public Use Microsamples of the U.S. Census, I estimate conditional logit models with the 48 contiguous U.S. states as the choice set. Like previous researchers, I estimate that immigrants have a higher probability of moving to states where individuals from their region of birth represent a larger share of the state population, with relatives of legal permanent residents responding most to this factor. I also find that, in general, immigrants in all admission categories respond to labor market conditions when choosing where to live, but that these effects were the largest for male employment-based immigrants and, surprisingly, refugees.

Suggested Citation

  • David A. Jaeger, 2006. "Green Cards and the Location Choices of Immigrants in the United States, 1971-2000," Working Papers 29, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary.
  • Handle: RePEc:cwm:wpaper:29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://economics.wm.edu/wp/cwm_wp29.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bauer, Thomas K. & Epstein, Gil S. & Gang, Ira N., 2002. "Herd Effects or Migration Networks? The Location Choice of Mexican Immigrants in the U.S," IZA Discussion Papers 551, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Does Immigration Grease the Wheels of the Labor Market?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 14, pages 431-484, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Borjas, George J., 1999. "The economic analysis of immigration," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 28, pages 1697-1760, Elsevier.
    4. Cragg, Michael & Kahn, Matthew, 1997. "New Estimates of Climate Demand: Evidence from Location Choice," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 261-284, September.
    5. Bartel, Ann P, 1989. "Where Do the New U.S. Immigrants Live?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(4), pages 371-391, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Lewis, Ethan & Peri, Giovanni, 2015. "Immigration and the Economy of Cities and Regions," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 625-685, Elsevier.
    2. Olga Lazareva & Konstantin Sonin, 2008. "Russian Migrants to Russia: Choice of Location and Labor Market Outcomes," Working Papers w0117, New Economic School (NES).
    3. Peter Huber & Klaus Nowotny & Julia Bock-Schappelwein, 2010. "Qualification Structure, Over- and Under-qualification of the Foreign Born in Austria and the EU," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 41226.
    4. Joan Carles Martori & Philippe Apparicio & André Ngamini Ngui, 2016. "Understanding Immigrant Population Growth Within Urban Areas: A Spatial Econometric Approach," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 215-234, February.
    5. repec:wsr:ecbook:2010:i:ii-008 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Schündeln, Matthias, 2007. "Are Immigrants More Mobile Than Natives? Evidence from Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 3226, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. André Rossi Oliveira & Rossitza B. Wooster & Michael Paruszkiewicz, 2021. "The impact of earnings gaps and networks on migration decisions: an empirical study of undocumented Mexican migrants," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 993-1012, February.
    8. Klaus Nowotny, 2011. "Welfare Magnets, Taxation and the Location Decisions of Migrants to the EU," ERSA conference papers ersa11p133, European Regional Science Association.
    9. Rashid, Saman, 2004. "Internal migration and income of immigrant families," Umeå Economic Studies 624, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    10. Caballero, María Esther & Cadena, Brian C. & Kovak, Brian K., 2023. "The international transmission of local economic shocks through migrant networks," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    11. David C. Maré & Steven Stillman, 2010. "The Impact of Immigration on the Geographic Mobility of New Zealanders," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(273), pages 247-259, June.
    12. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Bruno Decreuse & Morgane Laouénan & Alain Trannoy, 2016. "Customer Discrimination and Employment Outcomes: Theory and Evidence from the French Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 107-160.
    13. Marie Howland & Doan Nguyen, 2010. "The Impact of Immigration on Four Low-Wage Industries in the 1990s," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 24(2), pages 99-109, May.
    14. Andreas Beerli & Ronald Indergand, 2014. "Which Factors Drive the Skill-Mix of Migrants in the Long-Run?," Diskussionsschriften dp1501, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    15. Francesca D'Auria & Kieran Mc Morrow & Karl Pichelmann, 2008. "Economic impact of migration flows following the 2004 EU enlargement process - A model based analysis," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 349, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    16. Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht & Vogel, Thorsten, 2010. "Employment, wages, and the economic cycle: Differences between immigrants and natives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 1-17, January.
    17. Michael Haan, 2008. "The Place of Place: Location and Immigrant Economic Well-being in Canada," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 27(6), pages 751-771, December.
    18. Brian C. Cadena & Brian K. Kovak, 2016. "Immigrants Equilibrate Local Labor Markets: Evidence from the Great Recession," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 257-290, January.
    19. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Bruno Decreuse & Morgane Laouénan & Alain Trannoy, 2016. "Customer Discrimination and Employment Outcomes: Theory and Evidence from the French Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 107-160.
    20. William R. Kerr, 2010. "Breakthrough Inventions and Migrating Clusters of Innovation," NBER Chapters, in: Cities and Entrepreneurship, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Blackaby, David H. & Drinkwater, Stephen, 2004. "Migration and Labour Market Differences: The Case of Wales," IZA Discussion Papers 1275, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    admission categories; immigrants; settlement patterns; conditional logit;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • C35 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cwm:wpaper:29. 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: Daifeng He or Alfredo Pereira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decwmus.html .

    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.