Suchergebnisse

We analyze the effect of immigrants' legal status on their consumption behavior using unique survey data that samples both documented and undocumented immigrants. To address the problem of sorting into legal status, we propose two alternative identification strategies as exogenous source of variation for current legal status: First, transitory income shocks in the home country, measured as rainfall shocks at the time of emigration. Second, amnesty quotas that grant legal residence status to undocumented immigrants. Both sources of variation create a strong first stage, and-although very different in nature-lead to similar estimates of the effects of illegal status on consumption, with undocumented immigrants consuming about 40% less than documented immigrants, conditional on background characteristics. Roughly one quarter of this decrease is explained by undocumented immigrants having lower incomes than documented immigrants. Our findings imply that legalization programs may have a potentially important effect on immigrants' consumption behavior, with consequences for both the source and host countries.

During the nineteenth century the Cuban sugar plantation became a highly dynamic space, open to foreign intervention at many levels. The increasing commercial prospects in the Cuban economy from the mid-nineteenth century led American, French and British manufacturers of refining equipment to actively commercialize their innovations in Cuba. Many of these foreign manufacturers of machinery had branches and agents in Havana. This article seeks to highlight the technological links between these firms manufacturing machinery and the Cuban plantation economy. Through the study of patent data and trade figures, it shows that the pattern of technology transfer to Cuba, which emerged during the nineteenth century, transgressed political boundaries. In addition, this article also considers the circulation of technical expertise between Cuba and advanced industrial nations, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as the role of transnational networks of experts. The article ends with an examination of the transnational operations in Cuba of the French firm Derosne & Cail, one of the most innovative engineering firms of the mid-nineteenth century as well as one of the first European companies to supply advanced technology to the Caribbean sugar industry.