Rapidly increasing immigration into the United States has spawned much public debate and also legislation to regulate the inflow. This phenomenon has also stimulated a growing literature on the economics of immigration which has focused on trying to better understand the causes and consequences immigration. The purpose of this research is to extend and deepen our understanding of immigration in two directions. One part of the study will examine the economic success of immigrants over an extended period from 1940 through 1980. The other part will extend a theoretical model of migration to account for return migration. The first part of the study will involve jointly analyzing the performance of immigrants in the U.S. labor market in the five Census from 1940 through 1980. This approach allows for a clearer interpretation of the role played by the 1965 Amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act, as well as avoids some of the biases that have affected other studies. The second part will generalize an economic model of immigration to allow for the possibility that incoming migrants change their minds, and thus return migration flows are generated. This model will be tested using the Census Public Use Files, published Immigration and Naturalization Service data, and the Aliens Legally Admitted for Permanent Residence micro data.
