Barriers to immigration of low-skilled workers from developing countries into the advanced countries prevent many potential migrants from leaving their countries of origin. With very low home-country wages in relation to the cost of undocumented migration, the opportunity to migrate often hinges...

This paper develops a model of optimizing behavior of asylum seekers whose objective is to reach an advanced country. Their personal characteristics and the challenges anticipated along the way determine whether they try to reach the ultimate destination with the aid of human smugglers or by...

Countries with strict immigration policies often resort to deportation measures to reduce their stocks of illegal immigrants. Many of their undocumented foreign workers, however, are not deported but rather choose to return home voluntarily. This paper studies the optimizing behavior of...