Gordon Hanson and Craig McIntosh: Article on Migration Rates
Birth Rates and Border Crossings: Latin American Migration to the US, Canada, Spain and the UK
06/14/2012
Gordon H. Hanson and Craig McIntosh,
The Economic Journal
We use census data for the US, Canada, Spain and UK to estimate bilateral migration rates to these countries from 25 Latin American and Caribbean nations over the period 1980 to 2005. Latin American migration to the US is responsive to labour supply and demand shocks as well as natural disasters. Latin American migration to Canada, Spain and the UK, in contrast, is largely insensitive to these shocks, responding only to civil and military conflict. The results are consistent with US immigration being mediated by market forces and immigration to the other countries being insulated from labour market shocks.
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Gordon Hanson is director of the Center on Emerging and Pacific Economies and professor of economics at UC San Diego. He specializes in the economics of international trade, international migration, and foreign direct investment. He has published extensively in the top academic journals of the economics discipline, is widely cited for his research by scholars across the social sciences, and is frequently quoted in major media outlets. His current research examines the international migration of skilled labor, border enforcement and illegal immigration, the impact of imports from China on the US labor market, and the determinants of comparative advantage.
Craig McIntosh is a development economist whose work focuses on program evaluation. His main research interest is the design of institutions which promote the provision of financial services to micro-entrepreneurs. He has conducted field evaluations of innovative anti-poverty policies in Mexico, Guatemala, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania. He is currently working on research projects investigating how to boost savings among the poor, on whether schooling can be used as a tool to fight HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, and on mechanisms to improve the long-term viability of Fair Trade markets.
