This paper estimates the causal effect of the prospect of legal status on the employment outcomes of undocumented immigrants. Our identification strategy exploits a natural experiment provided by the 2002 amnesty program in Italy that introduced an exogenous discontinuity in eligibility based on...

Undocumented immigration is a core policy issue. However, quantitative information on the phenomenon is absolutely scant. This paper uses a uniquely large data set on undocumented immigrants to provide new information on immigrants' personal characteristics and their socioeconomic status. We...