Eastern Economic Journal

, Volume 39, Issue 4, pp 464–492 | Cite as

Determinants of Illegal Mexican Immigration into the US Southern Border States

  • Andreas Buehn
  • Stefan Eichler
Article
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Abstract

We model illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border into Arizona, California, and Texas as an unobservable variable applying a Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes model. Using state-level data from 1985 to 2004, we test the incentives and deterrents influencing illegal immigration. Better labor market conditions in a US state and worse in Mexico encourage illegal immigration while more intense border enforcement deters it. Estimating the state-specific inflow of illegal Mexican immigrants we find that the 1994/95 peso crisis in Mexico led to significant increases in illegal immigration. US border enforcement policies in the 1990s provided temporary relief while post-9/11 re-enforcement has reduced illegal immigration.

Keywords

informal economy illegal migration MIMIC models US Mexico 

JEL Classifications

O17 K42 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

We thank three anonymous referees, the Editor, Joseph P. Daniels, and seminar participants at Technische Universitaet Dresden and Marquette University for many constructive comments that have considerably improved the paper.

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Copyright information

© Eastern Economic Association 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Andreas Buehn
    • 1
  • Stefan Eichler
    • 2
  1. 1.Utrecht University, Utrecht School of Economics (USE)UtrechtThe Netherlands
  2. 2.Technische Universitaet Dresden, Faculty of Business and EconomicsDresdenGermany

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