Full Citation
Title: Taken by Storm: Hurricanes, Migrant Networks, and U.S. Immigration
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2017
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: How readily do potential migrants respond to changes in the returns to migration? When there are fixed migration costs, potential migrants can fail to respond to increased migration returns. We explore these issues in the context of migration to the U.S., the worlds largest migration destination. We exploit exogenous variation in the returns to migration due to natural disasters (in particular, hurricanes), which reduce the attractiveness of origin locations. We examine heterogeneity in the response to hurricanes with respect to the size of previous U.S. migrant stocks from the same country. Our analysis uses restricted-access U.S. Census data, allowing improved migration stock and flow estimates and inclusion of small hurricane-prone countries. Our results suggest that networks of prior migrants help reduce immigration barriers, making migration more responsive to the returns to migration. Hurricanes cause immediate increases in U.S. immigration, with the effect concentrated among countries with larger pre-existing stocks of U.S. immigrants. Analysis of administrative immigration data reveals that a key role played by migrant networks is formally sponsoring relatives for legal, permanent immigration.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Mahajan, Parag; Yang, Dean
Publisher: University of Michigan
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Migration and Immigration, Natural Resource Management
Countries: