Penn Calendar Penn A-Z School of Arts and Sciences University of Pennsylvania

Graduate Workshop - Immigration: Economics, Policy, and Politics

Wednesday, January 13, 2016 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Silverstein Forum, Stiteler Hall First Floor (Accessibility)
Lunch provided.

Sarah Coleman (History, Princeton)
“'To reward the wrong way is not the American way:” Welfare, Immigrants’ Rights and the Battle over Benefits 1990 -1997"

Alberto Ciancio (Economics, UPenn)
"The Economics of Local Immigration Enforcement in the United States"

THIS MONTH’S PAPERS EXPLORE IMMIGRATION. Bringing together the perspectives of economics and history, the papers highlight important themes for understanding and crafting immigration policy.

Sarah Coleman’s paper examines the domestic political debate over welfare benefits for immigrants, and the resulting policy shifts which culminated in the stripping of federal welfare eligibility for most non-citizens in 1996. She looks at the battle in California in the early 1990s over immigrants’ access to welfare and how it influenced national policy.

Alberto Ciancio’s paper explores the labor market consequences and the economic determinants of immigration enforcement in the United States. Based on an analysis of county-level data, he argues that deportation intensity and employer restrictions do not seem to induce immigrants to leave the county, but rather to accept lower-paying jobs.