Differential economic opportunity, transferability of skills, and immigration to the United States and Canada

Studies concerned with US and Canadian immigration after World War II have been based on cross-sectional data or on limited time series data and have stressed the importance of differential economic opportunity as a cause of migration. In this study, four vectors of variables are used to explain annual immigration to both the US and Canada, 1962-1984, from a number of specific source countries - economic opportunities, transferability of skills, level of economic development and political conditions, and institutional controls that reflect the immigration policies of the two nations. Wage differentials, several measures of skill transferability, political conditions in source countries, and the policy variables prove to be important determinants of US and Canadian immigration. -Authors