Angelucci, M.; (2005) Border enforcement, aid and migration. Doctoral thesis , University of London.

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Abstract

This thesis addresses the issue of policy effects on domestic and international migration, considering in particular the case of Mexican migration. The first essay investigates the effect of U.S. border enforcement on the net flow of Mexican undocumented migration. Such effect is theoretically ambiguous, given that increases in border controls deter prospective migrants from cross ing the border illegally, but lengthen the U.S. permanence of current ones. It estimates border enforcement's net impact on migration inflow using a sample of potential and current illegal migrants. U.S. border enforcement significantly reduces the net flow of undocumented migration. However, the reduction in net flow is more than half the size of the decrease in inflow. The second essay models the short and medium-run impact of aid on migration, considering alternatively the effect of unconditional and conditional cash transfers to financially constrained households. Data from the evaluation of a Mexican development program, Progresa, are used to estimate the effect of the grant on migration. The empirical analysis shows that the program is associated with an increase in international migration, which is also a positive function of the potential transfer size. Conditional grants in the form of secondary school subsidies reduce the short-term migration probability. Progresa does not seem to increase medium-term migration. The final chapter reviews the approaches employed to estimate Treatment on the Treated Effects (TTEs) using experimental data in the presence of non-compliers. It discusses the types of parameters that can be identified using the Progresa data. It uncovers new parameters that have not been estimated so far, based on the fact that a group of eligible households did not receive the program transfer in the initial stages of its implementation. It proposes alternative estimating procedures to identify counterfactuals in the presence of non-compliers for users of the Progresa data. It complements the theoretical part with an empirical application by estimating the effect of Progresa on school enrolment.

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