Measuring ethnic linkages among migrants (original) (raw)

Abstract

PurposeUsing three different measures, the aim of this paper is to investigate the channels through which ethnic linkages/networks affect the location choice of migrants.Design/methodology/approachThe authors estimate conditional logit models of the US location choice by Mexican migrants, using individual level data on Mexican‐US migration collected by the Mexican Migration ProjectFindingsThe main finding is that the choice of Mexican immigrants to move to a region has a hump‐shaped relation with the amount of fellow‐Mexicans living there and with the amount of people coming from the same village. These effects are stronger for illegal immigrants and for first‐time immigrants than for legal immigrants and repeat immigrants respectively. Mixed evidence is found for the effect of the total time the Mexicans from the same village have lived in the USA.Originality/valueThe paper formulates the location choice of Mexican migrants in the USA as influenced by: the number of Mexicans living...

Loading...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

References (24)

  1. Bartel, A.P. (1989), "Where do the new US immigrants live?", Journal of Labor Economics, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 371-91.
  2. Bauer, T., Epstein, G.S. and Gang, I.N. (2005), "Enclaves, language and the location choice of migrants", Journal of Population Economics, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 649-62.
  3. Bauer, T., Epstein, G.S. and Gang, I.N. (2007), "The influence of stocks and flows on migrants' location choices", Research in Labor Economics, Vol. 26, JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 199-229. Measuring ethnic linkages
  4. Bauer, T., Lofstrom, M. and Zimmermann, K.F. (2000), "Immigration policy, assimilation of immigrants and natives' sentiments towards immigrants: evidence from 12 OECD-countries", Swedish Economic Policy Review, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 11-53.
  5. Card, D. (1990), "The impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami labor market", Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 43 No. 2, pp. 245-57.
  6. Carrington, W.J., Detragiache, E. and Vishwanath, T. (1996), "Migration with endogenous moving costs", American Economic Review, Vol. 86 No. 4, pp. 909-30.
  7. Chiswick, B.R. and Miller, P.W. (1996), "Ethnic networks and language proficiency among immigrants", Journal of Population Economics, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 19-35.
  8. Chiswick, B.R. and Miller, P.W. (2005), "Do enclaves matter in immigrant adjustment?", City & Community, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 5-35.
  9. Church, J. and King, I. (1983), "Bilingualism and network externalities", Canadian Journal of Economics, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 337-45.
  10. Darvish-Lecker, T. (1990), "Externalities in migration", Economics Letters, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 185-91.
  11. Epstein, G.S. (2002), "Informational cascades and decision to migrate", IZA Working Paper No. 445, IZA, Bonn.
  12. Gang, I.N. and Rivera-Batiz, F.L. (1994), "Market effects of immigration in the united states and Europe: substitution vs complementarity", Journal of Population Economics, Vol. 7 No. 1994, pp. 157-75.
  13. Gang, I.N., Rivera-Batiz, F.L. and Yun, M.-S. (2002), Economic Strain, Ethnic Concentration and Attitudes towards Foreigners in the European Union, Rutgers, New Brunswick, NJ.
  14. Gottlieb, P. (1987), Making Their Own Way: Shorthorn Blacks' Migration to Pittsburgh, 1916-30, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL.
  15. Grossman, J.R. (1989), Land and Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
  16. Jaeger, D.A. (2007), "Green cards and the location choices of immigrants in the United States, 1971-2000", Research in Labor Economics, Vol. 27, pp. 131-83.
  17. McFadden, D. (1984), "Econometric analysis of qualitative choice models", in Griliches, Z. and Intriligator, M.D. (Eds), Handbook of Econometrics, Volume II, North-Holland, Amsterdam.
  18. Marks, C. (1989), Farewell -We're Good and Gone: The Great Black Migration, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
  19. Massey, D.S. and Zenteno, R. (1999), "A validation of the ethnosurvey: the case of Mexico-US migration", International Migration Review, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 766-93.
  20. Munshi, K. (2003), "Networks in the modern economy: Mexican migrants in the US labor market", Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 118, pp. 549-99.
  21. Phillips, J.A. and Massey, D.S. (2000), "Engines of immigration: stocks of human and social capital in Mexico", Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 81 No. 1, pp. 33-48.
  22. Zahnister, S.S. (1999), Mexican Migration to the United States: The Role of Migration Networks and Human Capital Accumulation, Garland Publishing, New York, NY. About the authors Thomas Bauer is Professor of Economics at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany and is on the Executive Board of the RWI-Essen. He is an officer of the European Society of Population Economics, and was the IZA Program Director for the Research Area "Mobility and Flexibility of IJM 30,1/2 Labor". He has published papers on migration, labor, population, and applied microeconometrics in leading economics journals. He is research fellow of IZA and the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (CCIS) at the UC-San Diego.
  23. Gil S. Epstein is a Professor of Economics at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Population Economics and is an Associate Editor for Economics. He has published papers on Political Economy, Public Choice, Labor Economics, Migration and Public Policy in leading economics journals. His book on Endogenous Public Policy and Contests (co-authored with Shmuel Nitzan) is being published by Springer. He is a Research Fellow in IZA (Bonn) and CReAM (London) USA.
  24. Ira N. Gang is a Professor of Economics at Rutgers University, USA. He has published papers on development, migration and public policy, public choice, political economy and labor economics in leading economics journals. He was one of the founding editors of the Review of Development Economics, and is an Associate Editor/Editorial Board member of several journals, including the Journal of Population Economics. He is a Research Fellow at IZA and several other academic institutes. Ira N. Gang is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: gang@economics.rutgers.edu Measuring ethnic linkages 69 To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints