The combination of increasing immigration pressures and restrictive policies imperfectly enforced by many destination countries has made illegal immigration widespread. This article provides an overview of the mechanisms behind the formation of migration policies and how they lead to or limit...

We study the migration policy set by a welfare maximizing government in a model where immigrant workers differ in their skills and are imperfectly matched with heterogeneous occupations. The policy fixes a minimum skill level for legal migrants, and foreign workers that fall below it can only...

We ask which migration policy a developed country will choose when its objective is to attain the optimal skill composition of the country's workforce, and when the policy menu consists of an entry fee and a quota. We compare these two policies under the assumptions that individuals are...

This paper identifies the migration policies that emerge when both the sending country and the receiving country wield power to set migration quotas, when controlling migration is costly, and when the decision how much human capital to acquire depends, among other things, on the migration...

We ask which migration policy a developed country will choose when its objective is to attain the optimal skill composition of the country's workforce, and when the policy menu consists of an entry fee and a quota. We compare these two policies under the assumptions that individuals are...

This paper identifies the migration policies that emerge when both the sending country and the receiving country wield power to set migration quotas, when controlling migration is costly, and when the decision of how much human capital to acquire depends, among other things, on the migration...

This paper identifies the migration policies that emerge when both the sending country and the receiving country wield power to set migration quotas, when controlling migration is costly, and when the decision how much human capital to acquire depends, among other things, on the migration...