The research-policy nexus: the case of unauthorised Mexico–US migration and US policy responses

✍ Scribed by Philip Martin

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 86 KB
• Volume: 16
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1544-8444
• DOI: 10.1002/psp.586

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Demographers have been more successful reaching agreement on the number of unauthorised foreigners in the United States, (estimated to number around 12 million) than economists have been in reaching consensus on the economic impacts of the mostly low‐skilled unauthorised workers in the US labour market, (who number perhaps 6 million). Some economists have found significant adverse effects of low‐skilled unauthorised workers on comparable US‐born workers, while others have found positive effects of low‐skilled immigrants on US workers.

Economic research has played only a limited role in the US policy debate over what to do about unauthorised migration. The research most commonly cited in the media and by policy makers is released by think tanks and advocacy groups that tend to have specific points of view, favouring either more or less migration. There is, however, agreement amongst economists that low‐skilled unauthorised migrants, mostly from Mexico and Latin America, have relatively modest effects in the huge US economy. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.