IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/copoec/v35y2024i1d10.1007_s10602-023-09400-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fake marriages, asylum, and gas station robberies: institutional determinants of migrants' strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua Bedi

    (Copenhagen Business School)

Abstract

I study institutional and political determinants of migrants’ immigration strategies using the United States’ immigration system as a case study. Drawing from work that theoretically connects decisions to immigrate legally vs. illegally as well as theoretical insights from literature on the economics of crime, I show how relative probabilities of successful migration using different strategies and relative utility gained using different strategies weigh heavily in immigrants’ calculus. To do so, I use qualitative evidence of migrant strategies in the face of migration policy constraints. These various policy constraints lead to a variety of different tactics revolving around decisions regarding whether to immigrate legally, to commit visa fraud, or to choose one type of visa over another. In the process, I also build on a rich body of Public Choice literature to demonstrate how complicated regulatory systems, in this case regulatory systems that quantitatively restrict migration, encourage rent-seeking by both migrants and nonmigrants.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Bedi, 2024. "Fake marriages, asylum, and gas station robberies: institutional determinants of migrants' strategies," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 45-72, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:35:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s10602-023-09400-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10602-023-09400-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10602-023-09400-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10602-023-09400-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rafael Di Tella & Alberto Ades, 1999. "Rents, Competition, and Corruption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 982-993, September.
    2. Antonio Spilimbergo & Gordon H. Hanson, 1999. "Illegal Immigration, Border Enforcement, and Relative Wages: Evidence from Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico Border," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1337-1357, December.
    3. Stark, Oded & Helmenstein, Christian & Prskawetz, Alexia, 1997. "A brain gain with a brain drain," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 227-234, August.
    4. Michel Beine & Fréderic Docquier & Hillel Rapoport, 2008. "Brain Drain and Human Capital Formation in Developing Countries: Winners and Losers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(528), pages 631-652, April.
    5. Baumol, William J., 1996. "Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 3-22, January.
    6. Krieger, Tim & Renner, Laura & Ruhose, Jens, 2018. "Long-term relatedness between countries and international migrant selection," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 35-54.
    7. Krueger, Anne O, 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 291-303, June.
    8. Falck, Oliver & Heblich, Stephan & Lameli, Alfred & Südekum, Jens, 2012. "Dialects, cultural identity, and economic exchange," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 225-239.
    9. Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz, 1999. "Undocumented workers in the labor market: An analysis of the earnings of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 12(1), pages 91-116.
    10. Stark, Oded & Helmenstein, Christian & Prskawetz, Alexia, 1998. "Human capital depletion, human capital formation, and migration: a blessing or a "curse"?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 363-367, September.
    11. Tabellini, Marco, 2020. "Gifts of the Immigrants, Woes of the Natives: Lessons from the Age of Mass Migration," CEPR Discussion Papers 14317, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Joshua K. Bedi & Shaomeng Jia, 2022. "Give me your rested, your wealthy, your educated few? A critical discussion of the current literature on immigrant self-employment," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 11(1), pages 53-69, February.
    13. Peter Schaeffer, 2005. "Human capital, migration strategy, and brain drain," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 319-335.
    14. Helbling, Marc & Bjerre, Liv & Römer, Friederike & Zobel, Malisa, 2017. "Measuring immigration policies: the IMPIC database," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 16(1), pages 79-98.
    15. Jennifer Hunt, 2006. "Staunching Emigration from East Germany: Age and the Determinants of Migration," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(5), pages 1014-1037, September.
    16. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Self-Selection and the Earnings of Immigrants," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 4, pages 69-91, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Douglas S. Massey & Karen A. Pren, 2012. "Unintended Consequences of US Immigration Policy: Explaining the Post‐1965 Surge from Latin America," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 38(1), pages 1-29, March.
    18. Wayne A. Cornelius & Idean Salehyan, 2007. "Does border enforcement deter unauthorized immigration? The case of Mexican migration to the United States of America," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 1(2), pages 139-153, June.
    19. Raymond Fisman, 2001. "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1095-1102, September.
    20. Marco Tabellini, 2020. "Gifts of the Immigrants, Woes of the Natives: Lessons from the Age of Mass Migration," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(1), pages 454-486.
    21. Searle, John R., 2005. "What is an institution?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 1-22, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elanga Mendogo, Daniel Joël & Bocquého, Géraldine, 2024. "Risk preferences and refugee migration to Europe: An experimental analysis," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Claire Naiditch & Radu Vranceanu, 2013. "A two-country model of high skill migration with public education," Working Papers hal-00779716, HAL.
    2. Antwi, James & Phillips, David C., 2013. "Wages and health worker retention: Evidence from public sector wage reforms in Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 101-115.
    3. Assunção, Juliano Junqueira & Carvalho, Leandro, 2013. "Financial Constraints, Endogenous Educational Choices and Self-Selection of Migrants," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 33(2), November.
    4. repec:hal:journl:hal-00779716 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Andrea Bernini & Laurent Bossavie & Daniel Garrote-Sánchez & Mattia Makovec, 2024. "Corruption as a push and pull factor of migration flows: evidence from European countries," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 263-281, February.
    6. Clarke, George R. G. & Xu, Lixin Colin, 2004. "Privatization, competition, and corruption: how characteristics of bribe takers and payers affect bribes to utilities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2067-2097, August.
    7. Jens Ruhose, 2015. "Microeconometric Analyses on Economic Consequences of Selective Migration," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 61.
    8. Krieger, Tim & Renner, Laura & Ruhose, Jens, 2018. "Long-term relatedness between countries and international migrant selection," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 35-54.
    9. Luca Marchiori & I-Ling Shen & Frédéric Docquier, 2013. "Brain Drain In Globalization: A General Equilibrium Analysis From The Sending Countries' Perspective," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(2), pages 1582-1602, April.
    10. Simone Bertoli & Hillel Rapoport, 2015. "Heaven's Swing Door: Endogenous Skills, Migration Networks, and the Effectiveness of Quality-Selective Immigration Policies," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(2), pages 565-591, April.
    11. Jean-Louis Arcand & Linguère M'Baye, 2011. "Braving the waves: The economics of clandestine migration from Africa," CERDI Working papers halshs-00575606, HAL.
    12. Bénassy, Jean-Pascal & Brezis, Elise S., 2013. "Brain drain and development traps," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 15-22.
    13. Di Maria, Corrado & Lazarova, Emiliya A., 2012. "Migration, Human Capital Formation, and Growth: An Empirical Investigation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 938-955.
    14. Frédéric Docquier & Hillel Rapoport, 2012. "Globalization, Brain Drain, and Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(3), pages 681-730, September.
    15. Arteaga, Fernando & Desierto, Desiree & Koyama, Mark, 2024. "Shipwrecked by rents," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    16. P. Giannoccolo, 2004. "The Brain Drain. A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 526, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    17. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Straub, Stéphane & Flochel, Thomas, 2016. "Public Procurement and Rent-Seeking: The Case of Paraguay," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 395-407.
    18. Biavaschi, Costanza & Burzyński, Michał & Elsner, Benjamin & Machado, Joël, 2020. "Taking the skill bias out of global migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    19. Grossmann, Volker & Stadelmann, David, 2011. "Does international mobility of high-skilled workers aggravate between-country inequality?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 88-94, May.
    20. Thierry Baudassé & Rémi Bazillier & Ismaël Issifou, 2018. "Migration And Institutions: Exit And Voice (From Abroad)?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 727-766, July.
    21. Yu Yan & Shusen Qi, 2021. "I Know What I Need: Optimization of Bribery," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(2), pages 311-332, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigration; Institutions; Policy; Visas; Rent-seeking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K37 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Immigration Law
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:35:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s10602-023-09400-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.