Economic Opportunities: Why Brazilians Are Moving to the US

OMG, like there are four possible 'sub effects' that can happen, ya know? 

 They're like unintended consequences that can be thought of from a theoretical standpoint: a) spacey; b) category vibes; c) time travel-ish; d) reverse flow (when immigration restriction messes with return making effects on net migration all confusing and stuff). That being said, like, hardly any studies consider the whole range of all possible effects and externalities, ya know?Methodologically, like, most of the studies with big geographical and time coverage have been all about looking at the association (like, correlation) between policies and outcomes, while case studies have been all about tracing the causal effect between the two. 

The rest of this section is like split into two parts, fam: one that's all about comprehensive approaches that don't even care about different migration categories, and the other one that's like only looking at one policy area, you know? Like, it could be all about labor migration or asylum, you feel me? Ortega and Peri are, like, totally different from what the books say, ya know? They're all like, "harsh entry laws totally make people not wanna immigrate." Each reform that introduced mad strict rules for immigrants decreased immigration flows by like 6% to 10%, fam. (Peri and Ortega 2009, 3) periodt. They be categorizing laws based on if they're liberal or restrictive, and like, separating the laws about asylum seekers from the ones about other types of immigrants, ya know? (Peri and Ortega 2009, 2) periodt. A second, poli econ argument would say that the political flex in most high income countries is to minimize the fiscal costs that might come up cuz of low-skilled immigration, either by keeping migrant numbers low or by restricting migrants' access to the social welfare system. While Ruhs and Martin provided some tea for this relationship (Ruhs and Martin 2008), and Ruhs has then spilled more tea on this initial hypothesis (Ruhs 2015), others are more skeptical of both the theoretical vibes of this expectation and the empirical receipts supporting it (Cummins and Rodríguez 2010b, 2010a).

Comprehensive studies be like, they check out how immigration policies, like, affect all the other stuff that makes people move around, you know?

Several quant studies don't even bother to flex on the diff between policy areas. Hooghe et al test, like, the vibes of policies on immigration flow into the country (1980-04). They like, mostly test three major pull factors, like, economic, cultural, and social stuff for migration flows. They also flex on the overall strength of democracy in countries using the Freedom House index, peep anti-discrimination legislation, whether TCNs have the right to vote, the time it takes to secure citizenship, and finally if a regularisation has ever been lit. The authors find no cap for any of these variables in the empirical analysis. No vibes at all. But like, they're not totally quick to brush off the idea that policies might have an impact on migration, ya know? They're like, "maybe state policies do play a big role, but we just can't see it 'cause our stats aren't strong enough" (Hooghe et al. 2008, 498–99).
Docquier et al. found that having fam abroad increases the pool of potential and, to a narrower extent, actual migration (2014c, 79–80). Lit fam be boostin' the migration game, ya know? This is hella important cuz, like, even if people ain't movin' for money when the economy's weak, havin' big communities in new countries can still keep immigration goin', ya know? Especially when fams get back together and stuff. In policy terms, this means that 'education-based migrant selection rules [read: point-based systems] are likely to have a moderate impact, especially in countries hosting large diasporas' (Beine, Docquier, and Özden 2011, 31) slaps hard fam. Belot and Hatton tryna put a number on this when they look into why immigrants get chosen in OECD countries, and they find that having a points-based system 'boosts the number of highly skilled peeps in migration by like six percentage points' (M. V. K. Belot and Hatton 2012, 1123).

Studies on specific policies lowkey flex the importance of unintended effects, ya know?

Other quant studies have been all about how certain policies affect migration vibes. Visa policies have been getting hella attention lately cuz they're like, super effective at controlling migration and stuff. Czaika and de Haas be like, visas be straight up killing the flows, but then the outflows from the same migrant groups be like, nah fam, we outta here (which is like, unintended and stuff). To reach such a conclusion, they pick 38 countries and check out how visa imposition affects turnover57 and net flows58. After peeping for that old-school control, like economic and political stuff. Do labor or asylum migration policies lowkey balance out the numbers and rights, fam. Ruhs and Martin think there's, like, a total bummer connection between how many labor immigrants a country lets in each year and the rights they get once they're in (Ruhs and Martin 2008). In the lit, this has been framed as the numbers vs. rights hypothesis. OMG, like the two authors totally say that this hypothesis is legit for two diff reasons. On a micro-economic argument, the main reason for this negative vibe is that rights can be a total drag for employers, and when labor costs go up, the demand for labor usually goes down.