WHATS DRIVING MEXICO-US MIGRATION - A THEORETICAL, EMPIRICAL, AND POLICY ANALYSIS

Using data gathered in 25 Mexican communities, the authors link indivi dual acts of migration to 41 theoretically defined individual-, househ old-, community-, and macroeconomic-level predictors. The indicators v ary through time to yield a discrete-time event-history analysis. Over the past 25 years, probabilities of first, repeat, and return migrati on have been linked more to the forces identified by social capital th eory and the new economics of migration than to the cost-benefit calcu lations assumed by the neoclassical model. The authors find that Mexic o-U.S. migration stems from three mutually reinforcing processes: soci al capital formation, human capital formation, and market consolidatio n.