Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/111511 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 9058
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Immigrants can increase international trade by shifting preferences towards the goods of their country of origin and by reducing bilateral transaction costs. Using geographical variations across US states for the period 1970 to 2005, we quantify the impact of immigrants on intermediate goods imports. We address endogeneity and reverse causality – which arises if migration from a country of origin to a US state is driven by trade opportunities between the two locations – by exploiting the exogenous allocation of refugees within the US refugee resettlement program. Our results are robust to an alternative identification strategy, based on the large influx of Central American immigrants to the United States after hurricane Mitch. We find that a 10 percent increase in recent immigrants to a given US state raises intermediate imports from those immigrants' country of origin by 1.5 percent.
Subjects: 
international trade
international migration
political refugees
hurricane Mitch
JEL: 
F14
F22
J61
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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