During the age of mass migration (1850-1913), one of the largest migration episodes in history, the United States maintained a nearly open border, allowing the study of migrant decisions unhindered by entry restrictions. We estimate the return to migration while accounting for migrant selection by comparing Norway-to-US migrants with their brothers who stayed in Norway in the late nineteenth ce...

Recent theoretical and empirical studies have emphasized the fact that the perspective of international migration increases the expected returns to skills in poor countries, linking the possibility of migrating (brain drain) with incentives to higher education (brain gain). If emigration is uncertain and some of the higly educated remain such channel may, at least in in part, counterbalance the...

This study compared the unemployment rates among return migrants and nonmigrants and examined the reintegration pattern of returnees in the domestic labor market. The study utilized three data sets: the 1980 World Bank Survey of Return Migrant Households; the 1986 ILO/ARTEP Survey of Return Migrant Households; the 1991 Pakistan Integrated Household Survey. Findings showed that unemployment rat...

This article examines the relationship between irregular migration, access to information and migration decisions. Using semi-structured interviews of thirty return migrants who failed reach their European destinations through Libya, I show that from Ghana rely predominantly on interpersonal sources, including colleagues, neighbors, friends relatives, for migration. Return seek those have relev...