Illegal migrants supply a valuable productive input: effort. But their status as illegals means that these migrants face a strictly positive probability of expulsion. A return to their country of origin entails reduced earnings when the wage at origin is lower than the wage at destination. This...

We propose a new microeconomic explanation for the divergent experiences of economies in forming human capital. We suggest that the positive effect of a longer life expectancy on human capital formation arises from two separate effects: a life expectancy effect and a prolonged intergenerational...

By means of examples that pertain to individual, family,and community contexts, it is shown that migration between locations is compatible with a zero expected net earnings differential between locations. The examples give rise to testable predictions that differ sharply from the predictions...

This paper provides a novel explanation of "educated unemployment," which is a salient feature of the labor markets in a number of developing countries. In a simple job-search framework we show that "educated unemployment" is caused by the perspective of international migration, that is, by the...

Although the phenomenon of refugee flows is not devoid of economic connotations, it has so far been investigated primarily by political scientists and sociologists. The analytical tools of economic inquiry have not yet been applied to this subject, although it stands to reason that such a study...

Consider a population of farmers who live around a lake. Each farmer engages in trade with his two adjacent neighbors. The trade is governed by a prisoner’s dilemma “rule of engagement.” A farmer’s payoff is the sum of the payoffs from the two prisoner’s dilemma games played with his...

We present a theory that systematically and causally links the well-being of native inhabitants with variation in the extent of the assimilation of migrants. Recent empirical findings are yielded as predictions of the theory.

Evidence is presented in support of the “brain gain” view that the likelihood of migrating to a destination wherein the returns to human capital (schooling) are high creates incentives to acquire human capital in migrant-sending areas. In Mexico, even though internal migrants are more...

While unearthing patterns and regularities in data, a recent article by Górny and Torunczyk-Ruiz (2013) falls short of explaining the observed patterns. This comment augments the article in this regard. The considerations that are brought to bear here on the article relate to preferences and...