Illegal Immigration and Migrant Networks: Is There an Optimal Immigration Quota Policy?

Joao Faria and Amnon Levy

Economics Working Papers from School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia

Abstract: High-skill immigrants form networks that facilitate subsequent low-skill immigration. To minimize the effects of low-skill immigration on unemployment, a strict lean-against-the-wind strategy or a flexible lean-against-the-wind strategy that is supported by, and takes into account the effect of, border control, are considered. None of these policies is necessarily better than the other as regards leniency toward low-skill immigration as well as the number of illegal immigrants. High-skill immigration increases illegal immigration when the effect of migrant networks on the supply of low-skill immigrants is greater than the job-creation effect of these networks.

Keywords: Migrant networks; immigration dynamics; low-skill immigration; illegal immigration; unemployment; lean-against-the-wind policy rules (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.uow.edu.au/content/groups/public/@web/@ ... ts/doc/uow012149.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:uow:depec1:wp03-08

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Working Papers from School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia School of Economics, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong NSW 2522 Australia. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Siminski ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).