It is often argued that tax competition may lead to a "race to the bottom". Such a race may hold indeed in the case of the pure case of factor mobility (such as capital mobility). However, in this paper we emphasize the unique feature of labor migration, that may nullify the "race to the bottom"...

This paper distinguishes between target-earnings and life-cycle motivations for return migration by examining how Philippine migrants%u2019 return decisions respond to major, unexpected exchange rate changes in their overseas locations (due to the Asian financial crisis). Overall, the evidence...

Recent theoretical and empirical studies have emphasized the fact that the prospect of international migration increases the expected returns to skills in poor countries, linking the possibility of migrating (brain drain) with incentives to higher education (brain gain). If emigration is...

In this paper, I selectively discuss recent empirical work on the consequences of global labor mobility. I examine how international migration affects the incomes of individuals in sending and receiving countries and of migrants themselves. Were a social planner to choose the migration policies...

In 2004, the European Union admitted 10 new countries, and wages in these countries were generally well below the levels in the existing member countries. Citizens of these newly-admitted countries were subsequently free to take jobs anywhere in the EU, and many did so. In 2015, a large number...

Using new survey data from Mexico, a dynamic econometric model is estimated to test the effect of policy changes on the flow of migrant labor from rural Mexico to the United States and test for differential effects of policy changes on male and female migration. We find that both IRCA and NAFTA...

Significant income gains from migrating from poorer to richer countries have motivated unilateral (source-country) policies facilitating labor emigration. However, their effectiveness is unknown. We conducted a large-scale randomized experiment in the Philippines testing the impact of...

From the 1970s to the early 2000s, the United States experienced an epochal wave of low-skilled immigration. Since the Great Recession, however, U.S. borders have become a far less active place when it comes to the net arrival of foreign workers. The number of undocumented immigrants has...

We study a reform that granted European cross-border workers free access to the Swiss labor market and had a stronger effect on regions close to the border. The greater availability of cross-border workers increased foreign employment substantially. Although many cross-border workers were highly...