Dealing with undocumented immigrants: the welfare effects of amnesties and deportations

Joël Machado

DEM Discussion Paper Series from Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg

Abstract: This paper aims to assess the effects of two different policies dealing with undocumented immigrants on agents’ welfare: amnesties and deportations. I develop a two-period overlapping generations model which accounts for the ex-ante production by undocumented workers and their partial contribution and access to public transfers. Additional channels, such as the discrimination on the labor market and a different productivity of regularized workers are also discussed. The impact of a migration policy strongly depends on the wage effects of the legalized/ deported workers and their net fiscal contribution. The calibration of the model for the United States in 2014 allows to disentangle the importance of the different channels at work. Overall the impact of the two policies on natives’ welfare is quite limited (between -0.1% and +0.15%). Retired agents benefit from an amnesty and are harmed by a deportation. The effect on workers is ambiguous and depends on the wage and fiscal effects in addition to the change in the returns on savings.

Keywords: undocumented immigration; amnesty; regularization; deportation; discrimination. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F29 J61 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Dealing with Undocumented Immigrants: The Welfare Effects of Amnesties and Deportations (2017)
Journal Article: DEALING WITH UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS: THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF AMNESTIES AND DEPORTATIONS (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:luc:wpaper:17-11

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