Immigration and Welfare Magnets

George Borjas

Journal of Labor Economics, 1999, vol. 17, issue 4, 607-37

Abstract: This article investigates if the location choices made by immigrants when they arrive in the United States are influenced by the interstate dispersion in welfare benefits. Income-maximizing behavior implies that foreign-born welfare recipients, unlike their native-born counterparts, may be clustered in the states that offer the highest benefits. The empirical analysis indicates that immigrant welfare recipients are indeed more heavily clustered in high-benefit states than the immigrants who do not receive welfare, or than natives. As a result, the welfare participation rate of immigrants is much more sensitive to changes in welfare benefits than that of natives. Copyright 1999 by University of Chicago Press.

Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (373)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/209933 full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JOLE for details.

Related works:
Working Paper: Immigration and Welfare Magnets (1998)
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:ucp:jlabec:v:17:y:1999:i:4:p:607-37

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Labor Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().