New Immigrants’ Location Choices: Magnets without Welfare
利用美国1996年福利改革后各州对合法非公民移民的福利政策差异，研究新移民是否根据福利资格和慷慨程度选择定居地，发现安全网项目对低技能未婚移民女性的区位选择影响很小。
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act denied legal noncitizens who arrived in the United States after August 1996 access to means-tested federal benefits for the first 5 years. However, using state funds, a number of states restored some of the benefits. I use this state-level policy variation to study whether newly arrived immigrants make location decisions on the basis of benefit eligibility and generosity. I find that safety-net programs have little effect on the location choices of newly arrived low-skilled unmarried immigrant women.