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Empirical characteristics of legal and illegal immigrants in the USA

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  • Vincenzo Caponi
  • Miana Plesca

Abstract

We combine the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), which contains information on US legal immigrants, with the American Community Survey (ACS), which contains information on legal and illegal immigrants to the USA. Using an econometric methodology proposed by Lancaster and Imbens (J Econ 71:145–160, 1996 ) we compute the probability for each observation in the ACS data to refer to an illegal immigrant, conditional on observed characteristics. These results are novel, since no other work has quantified the characteristics of illegal immigrants from a random sample representative of the population. Using these conditional probability weights on the ACS data, we are able to uncover some interesting facts on illegal immigrants. We find that, while illegal immigrants suffer a large wage penalty compared to legal immigrants at all education levels, the penalty decreases with education. We also find that the total fertility rate among illegal immigrant women is significantly higher than that among legal ones, in particular for middle and higher educated women. Looking at the sector of activity, we document that the sectors attracting most illegal immigrants are constructions and agriculture. We also generate empirical distributions for state of residence, country of origin, age, sex, and number of legal and illegal immigrants. Our forecasts for the aggregate distribution of legal and illegal characteristics match imputations by the Department of Homeland Security. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Vincenzo Caponi & Miana Plesca, 2014. "Empirical characteristics of legal and illegal immigrants in the USA," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(4), pages 923-960, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:27:y:2014:i:4:p:923-960
    DOI: 10.1007/s00148-014-0524-x
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    1. Fortin, Nicole & Lemieux, Thomas & Firpo, Sergio, 2011. "Decomposition Methods in Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 1, pages 1-102, Elsevier.
    2. Lancaster, Tony & Imbens, Guido, 1996. "Case-control studies with contaminated controls," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1-2), pages 145-160.
    3. Gary Burtless & Audrey Singer, 2011. "The Earnings and Social Security Contributions of Documented and Undocumented Mexican Immigrants," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2011-1, Center for Retirement Research, revised Jan 2011.
    4. Lancaster, Tony & Imbens, Guido, 1996. "Case-control studies with contaminated controls," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1-2), pages 145-160.
    5. Ridder, Geert & Moffitt, Robert, 2007. "The Econometrics of Data Combination," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 75, Elsevier.
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    Cited by:

    1. Michael Good, 2013. "Gravity and Localized Migration," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 2445-2453.
    2. Paolo Pinotti, 2017. "Clicking on Heaven's Door: The Effect of Immigrant Legalization on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(1), pages 138-168, January.
    3. Michael Good, 2013. "Geographic Proximity and the Pro-trade Effect of Migration: State-level Evidence from Mexican Migrants in the United States," 2013 Papers pgo530, Job Market Papers.
    4. Michael Good, 2012. "How Localized is the Pro-trade Effect of Immigration? Evidence from Mexico and the United States," Working Papers 1203, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    5. Sankar Mukhopadhyay, 2019. "Legal status and immigrants’ educational investment decisions," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 1-29, March.
    6. BURZYNSKI Michal & GOLA Pawel, 2019. "Mexican Migration to the United States: Selection, Assignment, and Welfare," LISER Working Paper Series 2019-10, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    7. Chunbei Wang, 2019. "Tightened Immigration Policies and the Self‐Employment Dynamics of Mexican Immigrants," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(4), pages 944-977, September.
    8. Altangerel, Khulan, 2019. "Essays on immigration policy," Other publications TiSEM 954c6300-249e-496c-8cef-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Legal immigrants; Illegal immigrants; Contaminated controls; J15; F22;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration

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