Abstract: Birthright citizenship is intended to align legal membership with social inclusion. But does it change the experience of belonging similarly across immigrant-origin groups? I study Germany’s 2000 Nationality Act, which introduced conditional birthright citizenship and sharply increased the share of second-generation children who were German citizens from birth. Using a nationally representative survey of ninth-grade students, I compare children born just before and after the reform’s January 1 cutoff and examine how changes differ across origin groups. The results reveal an uneven pattern rather than a common movement toward inclusion. Among Turkish-origin youth, eligibility brings no improvement in perceived respect or Gymnasium attendance, while perceived disadvantage in grading and outsider status increase. More favorable changes emerge among Balkan- and former-USSR-origin youth. Among second-generation immigrants, the Turkish-origin pattern in personal respect and school belonging is more adverse inside Gymnasium than outside it, suggesting that academic integration does not necessarily secure social recognition. I interpret these findings through a recognition gap: citizenship can strengthen expectations of equal treatment while the social meaning attached to origin changes more slowly. A reform that narrows the legal distance to membership can therefore expose the social distance that remains.
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Abstract: How does collective bargaining impact the wage gap between natives and immigrants? While unions typically compress wage distributions, their effect on the native-immigrant wage gap is theoretically ambiguous. Using Current Population Survey data aggregated at the state-industry-year level for the United States over the period 1994-2021, I examine how variation in union density affects residual wages and the wage gap between natives and immigrants. The analysis is guided by a theoretical framework of insider-outsider bargaining, in which native workers act as labor market insiders and immigrants as outsiders. To estimate its causal effect, I employ an instrumental variable strategy that leverages the differential impact of Right-to-Work laws across industries. The results show that a 1 percentage point increase in union share raises native residual wages by 0.28% but has no significant effect on immigrant wages, thereby widening the wage gap by approximately 0.25%. These findings suggest that collective bargaining institutions transmit wage-setting power unequally across worker groups, with unions favoring labor market insiders and potentially reinforcing wage disparities between natives and immigrants.
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Abstract: We study how temperature shocks affect remittances when climate risk becomes systemic. While remittances can help households adapt to local shocks, this mechanism relies on migrants not being exposed to the same risk. Using Mexican municipality-level remittance data, migrant network data linking origin communities to US destinations, and weather data from both countries, we identify two opposing forces. Extreme temperatures in Mexico increase remittance inflows, consistent with an insurance motive. In contrast, temperature extremes in US destinations reduce remittances, suggesting that climate shocks constrain migrants’ ability to provide support. Migrants’ labor market outcomes partially explain this effect.
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Abstract: Frequent droughts highlight the importance of groundwater, often a more reliable water source. As a result, access to wells tapping into groundwater may play a significant role in shaping settlement patterns. This paper investigates whether the availability of drinking water can shape settlement patterns. Establishing a causal relationship is challenging due to the nonrandom nature of water insecurity. To overcome this, I have compiled the most comprehensive data set available on the location and construction dates of known water points in Uganda. I leverage a difference-in-differences framework that accounts for staggered well construction to assess whether drinking water access drives migration. The findings indicate that improved access to drinking water acts as a pull factor, with the construction of wells leading to increased settlement in nearby areas.
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Abstract: This paper examines how immigrants to Argentina shape electoral outcomes following the Age of Mass Migration. I combine census data on European immigration with newly digitised district-level returns from national elections held between 1916 and 1930. Using a shift-share instrument, I find that European immigration shifts votes from right-wing to left-wing parties. Their political influence likely operates through local left-wing infrastructure and mutual-aid networks. Estimates of the second-generation electorate also point to vertical transmission. The results are not explained by observable voter characteristics from other Latin American countries. These findings highlight how local organisation and the mobilisation of eligible voters enable disenfranchised immigrants to influence electoral politics.
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Abstract: Migration in developing countries is low despite large income differences across space. This paper asks whether the non-pecuniary costs of migration hold prospective college students back, and whether access to a migrant peer can reduce them. I run a randomized controlled trial with 1,682 final-year secondary students across 52 schools in Maharashtra, India, offering half a phone-based mentorship program that pairs each student with a university student who migrated to Pune or Mumbai for college. At baseline, the average student would forgo a 129% increase in expected post-graduation earnings rather than study away from home, a penalty that rises steeply with distance, and beliefs about the difficulty of moving, safety, parental approval, and happiness away from home account for about 61.3% of it. Mentorship shifts choices concentrated at margin: applications and moves to the closest destination rise, a pre-specified migration index rises by 0.16 standard deviations, and the effect is concentrated among men. Non-pecuniary beliefs about the distant cities do not improve.
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Abstract: This paper studies the wage effects of migration in an environment where firms have market power in both labor and product markets. Using firm-level production function estimates and exploiting the Venezuelan exodus to Colombia as a large and exogenous migration shock, I show that migration increased firm employment, output, and the marginal productivity of labor in the Colombian manufacturing sector, yet had no effect on average wages. I demonstrate that this pattern cannot be reconciled with competitive models and instead reflects endogenous adjustments in firm labor and product market power. Migration reduced the value of self-employment, which serves as an outside option for manufacturing workers, thereby increasing firms’ wage mark-downs, while simultaneously shifting local demand toward more price-sensitive consumers and reducing price mark-ups. These offsetting adjustments muted the pass-through of productivity gains into wages, allowing firms to increase profitability and inducing firm entry in the medium run. The results provide new evidence that accounting jointly for labor and product market power is essential for interpreting the wage effects of migration.
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Abstract: Using surname-based estimators and novel data on colonial migration, I examine the intergenerational mobility of Americans who descended from transported English convicts, who accounted for 10% of all white immigrants during the colonial period. I find that having a convict ancestor is associated with a 12% lower probability of real estate ownership in 1850, a disadvantage that persists at 9% by 1940. This pattern extends to various socioeconomic outcomes. The primary channel of disadvantage is the initial wealth gap. I conduct multiple tests to rule out mechanisms such as negative signals associated with particular surnames or other inherited traits through family links. I also demonstrate similar effects for descendants of other bound laborers (indentured servants), while finding no effect for free migrants arriving during the same period. I calculate a lower-bound intergenerational wealth correlation estimate of 0.63 for the period between 1750 and 1850, and a striking 0.9 for the period between 1850 and 1940. These findings provide new insights into the long-term persistence of initial disadvantages and the structural barriers to social mobility faced by the bottom strata of society.
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Abstract: This paper examines the determinants of temporary migration and return decisions among immigrants in Italy, drawing on a novel administrative dataset covering 3.7 million foreign-born individuals between 2011 and 2022. By reconstructing individual migration histories, we estimate migration duration using parametric survival models, quantile regressions for interval-censored data, competing risk models, and a split cure model that separates the determinants of permanent settlement from those shaping the timing of exit, explicitly accounting for the large share of migrants who remain in Italy. Our results show that out-migration is concentrated in the first two years after arrival, while the majority of migrants remain in Italy over the 12-year observation window. Individual characteristics such as age and gender matter, but local conditions within Italy strongly shape migration duration. Higher local incomes are associated with longer stays, while higher rental prices accelerate departures. Regional disparities also matter independently of economic variables: migrants in the South and Islands remain significantly longer than those in the North. These findings highlight how heterogeneity within host countries—rather than national averages alone—shapes migration trajectories, offering novel insights into the geography of return migration and the importance of local labor markets and living conditions.
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Abstract: The impact of climate-induced temporary migration remains largely unexplored. Yet, this flow is widespread in developing countries and also responds to warming. The distinction from permanent migration is critical: because temporary migrants are often under-counted and unaccounted for in local administrative planning, they generate a distinct externality through the systematic under-provisioning of public services. Using a large-scale panel survey in India, we find that a one-degree rise in mean daily temperature increases temporary out-migration rates by 2%-6%. To investigate spatial spillovers under widespread climate change, we develop a model with both migration channels where temperature affects productivity and the under-provisioning of public services degrades local amenities for everyone. We use this framework to quantify the welfare costs of restricting each migration channel and compare different policy responses under climate change. Under the IPCC SSP 5-8.5 climate change scenario, restricting temporary migration generates welfare costs larger than restricting permanent migration, demonstrating that temporary flows are a critical but overlooked adaptation mechanism. Remedying the under-provisioning of services for temporary migrants delivers more than thrice the welfare gains than from cost-equivalent, place-based adaptation measures. These results have implications for the allocation of scarce climate adaptation funds in developing countries.
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Abstract: Urbanization generates large economic gains, but for urban incumbents, integrating rural migrants involves a trade-off between expanding the electorate and risking political backlash. This paper studies the political feasibility of urban integration policies using a field experiment conducted in the run-up to municipal elections in a rapidly growing city in Mozambique. We randomly vary access to an integration program for rural migrants and its political salience by delivering it either through local leaders, who act as political brokers between citizens and the city government, or independently of them. The program increases rural–urban migration even without political brokerage, but economic integra- tion in the city depends critically on it. Leader involvement raises brokers’ centrality and generates politically salient effects, increasing mobilization in favor of the incumbent, raising voter turnout among migrants, and shifting political support in migrants’ origin areas. We do not observe any backlash among residents. Together, these findings show that urbanization is not only an economic process but can also serve as a political strategy.
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Abstract: Do incumbent immigrants become political gatekeepers? This paper studies whether exposure to new inflows shifts immigration attitudes among natives, first-generation immigrants, and the second generation. We combine eleven waves of the European Social Survey (2002–2024) with annual regional migration data for 137 sub-national regions in 15 European countries. First-generation immigrants arrive with strongly pro-immigration views, but support declines with time in the destination and the native–immigrant gap closes by roughly half within two decades. To identify the causal effect of local inflows, we estimate a triple-difference specification and instrument regional immigrant shares using a leave-out shift-share instrument. A one standard deviation increase in the local immigrant share reduces first-generation immigrants’ pro-immigration index by about 0.37 standard deviations relative to natives, while second-generation immigrants respond similarly to natives. The relative backlash is broad-based across economic, cultural, and quality-of-life items and coincides with lower support for European unification and redistribution. Heterogeneity by composition shows that high-educated first-generation immigrants become more anti-immigration as the low-skilled share rises.
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Abstract: Changes in immigration policies concerning specific visa holders can affect both the outcomes for those targeted and selection into different types of immigration. Understanding these effects can be challenging given that publicly available datasets do not include an individual’s visa status, which is necessary for isolating who would be impacted by specific immigration policies and what the policy’s individual-level impacts are. This paper explores the prospect of causally identifying the effects of visa policy changes using survey data. Specifically, I evaluate the effects of a 2015 change in immigration policy in the U.S. that allowed H-4 visa holders (spouses of high-skilled H-1B holders) access to employment authorization (EAD). This setting uniquely enables me to study both the policy’s direct effects on H-4 visa holders and its indirect selection effects. I use natural language processing (NLP) and unsupervised machine learning (ML) to identify likely H-1B and H-4 visa holders in the American Community Survey. After validating my classification through a series of checks, I estimate matched and within-tenure event studies to isolate the policy’s effects. I find that one year after the policy was implemented, the employment rate of H-4 visa holders increased by 44.5 percentage points relative to naturalized citizens, and the fertility rate increased by 6.3 percentage points relative to other noncitizens. I use descriptive evidence to suggest that the H-4 EAD policy did not change the composition of H-1B or H-4 workers, nor did it alter marriage formation decisions. Overall, this paper uses the example of the change in policy impacting H-4 visa holders to show how a simple machine-learning-based approach to visa classification can be used to analyze the effects of immigration reforms on economic, family, and selection outcomes.
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