The Effects of Enforcement on Illegal Markets: Evidence from Migrant Smuggling along the Southwestern Border

Christina Gathmann

No 1004, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper analyzes how enforcement along the U.S.-Mexican border has affected the market for migrant smugglers. Using a unique dataset that links border crossing histories from illegal Mexican migrants to aggregate enforcement and punishment statistics, we find that the effect of enforcement on smuggling prices is small. Though enforcement has more than tripled over the past fifteen years, smuggling prices have increased by at most 30 percent. Unlike estimates from illegal drugs, the demand for border smugglers is however price elastic. We also show that illegal migrants have switched from heavily patrolled areas to more remote and dangerous crossing routes. These avoidance costs are in fact three times. the direct costs of enforcement on smuggling prices

Keywords: Mexico; enforcement; illegal migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J61 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 67 pages
Date: 2004-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published - published in: Journal of Public Economics, 2008, 92 (10-11), 1926-1941

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1004.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Effects of enforcement on illegal markets: Evidence from migrant smuggling along the southwestern border (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1004

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
library@iza.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte (hinte@iza.org).