Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

How Texas Migration Patterns Changed During The Pandemic, Pia M. Orrenius, Madeline Zavodny

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

The Covid-19 pandemic led to changes in where Americans work and live. The pandemic also affected international migration as borders were closed to nonessential travel and consulates shut down, slowing visa processing. These changes had implications for Texas, a state that has traditionally experienced large-scale domestic and international migration. This project also talks about the factors that positioned Texas to benefit from pandemic-induced changes in domestic migration patterns.

Trade In Value Added In Gross Exports: A Better Metric For Understanding Texas-Mexico Trade Flows, Noé Arón Fuentes, Alejandro Brugués, Gabriel González-König, Melissa Floca

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

The purpose of this research is to calculate the value-added trade between Texas and Mexico. We argue that a better metric to understand trade flow should be based on value added. U.S. trade deficit with Mexico only reflects gross trade and does not accurately portray the complexities of commercial flows between the two countries. Given that Mexico is Texas' most important trading partner, the transformation of gross trade into value-added trade flows will provide a clearer understanding of this important relationship.

Migration, Job Creation And Business Formation: A Case For Texas Exceptionalism?, Pia M. Orrenius, Madeline Zavodny

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

This study examines the relationship between people migration and business entry, business exit, and the components of job growth. This study also examines whether the relationship between migration and business and employment dynamics is different in Texas than in the rest of the country.

Health Care And Education Access Of Transnational Children In Mexico, Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, Laura Juarez

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Between 2001 and 2018, more than 5.5 million Mexican migrants were removed from the United States or returned to Mexico with their families as immigration enforcement escalated. Learning how this transition affected the access to health and education services of their children –also referred to as “the invisibles”– is a policy-relevant topic for both the United States and Mexico. Using representative data on 7.6 million Mexican and U.S.-born children from the 2015 Mexican Intercensal Survey, we provide evidence on the education and health care access gaps between these two groups and on the factors potentially responsible for the barriers encountered …

Migration And Inequalities In The Face Of Covid-19: Vulnerable Populations And Support Networks In Mexico And The United States, Claudia Masferrer

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Our world changed drastically on February 11th 2020 when the World Health Organization announced the name of the new coronavirus disease as COVID-19, and the pandemic was later considered the greatest challenge we have faced since World War II. Although we have started to experience social life in various new ways, the impacts that it will bring are still unknown. In recent years, migration had already undergone different transformations globally, and more changes are expected. How will populations on the move and migrant populations live in the following years post-COVID, and how different actors will respond to these changes, is …

Migration And Inequalities In The Face Of Covid-19: Economic, Political And Social Context In Mexico And The United States, Claudia Masferrer

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Our world changed drastically on February 11th 2020 when the World Health Organization announced the name of the new coronavirus disease as COVID-19, and the pandemic was later considered the greatest challenge we have faced since World War II. Although we have started to experience social life in various new ways, the impacts that it will bring are still unknown. In recent years, migration had already undergone different transformations globally, and more changes are expected. How will populations on the move and migrant populations live in the following years post-COVID, and how different actors will respond to these changes, is …

How Much Is Too Much?: Administrative Burden And Texas State Policy, Dominique J. Baker

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Several states, including Texas, have implemented an “excess semester credit hours (ESCH)” policy. State ESCH policies assess a fee to students at public institutions when they exceed a set number of lifetime cumulative credit hours (e.g., students with more than the 120 credit hours needed for a bachelor’s degree). Little is known about the administrative burden the implementation of and communication about state ESCH policies places on students. Therefore, I conducted a document analysis of the websites of all Texas public institutions. I analyzed 120 documents that were collected from November 2019 to April 2020. While some institutions created systems …

Contemporary High-Skilled Mexican Immigrant Entrepreneurs In Texas, Elizabeth Salamanca, Jorge Alcaraz

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

The number of Mexican entrepreneurs relocating to the United States has significantly increased during the last decade and their profile, as well as that of their businesses, have changed. This study develops a typology of Mexican migrant entrepreneurs living in the U.S., particularly in Texas, and of the business ventures that they undertake, and it determines the association between the entrepreneurs' profile and the kind of businesses they create. Through the analysis of migrant entrepreneurs' profiles, this paper identifies in what kind of transnational activities these entrepreneurs participate. The research follows both a qualitative approach based on the Gioia methodology …

What Happened To Mexico's Burgos Shale?, Matthew Fry, Trey Murphy, Andrew Hilburn, Armando Garcia Chiang

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

No abstract provided.

Investing In The Neighborhood: Changing Mexico-U.S. Migration Patterns And Opportunities For Sustainable Cooperation, Andrew Selee, Ariel Ruiz Soto, Silvia Giorguli-Saucedo, Claudia Masferrer

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

No abstract provided.

Immigration Policy Reform For A Stronger Economy, Pia M. Orrenius, Madeline Zavodny

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

The US economy grows as a result of higher labor force growth and productivity growth. Immigration is related to both of these drivers. Immigration accounts for about half of US workforce growth. This reliance is only set to increase as the baby boomer generation retires between now and 2030. As a result, immigrants and their children are expected to make up essentially all of the growth in the working-age population between 2015 and 2035.1 Immigration is also linked to productivity growth, in part via activities such as innovation and entrepreneurism, and hence less immigration could be a drag not only …

Is Mexican Migration To The United States An Issue Of Economic Inequality?, Rene Zenteno

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

This document presents an analytical overview of the following three questions: how does inequality affect migration? how much do we know about this link, particularly for the case of migration from Mexico to the United States? and can public policy play a role towards decreasing incentives to move north through inequality alleviation in Mexico? The first section includes a brief discussion of past and recent patterns in Mexican migration to the United States. Since inequality has been mainly addressed as an economic issue in the study of migration, the second part of the paper provides a general examination of different …

A Profile Of Highly Skilled Mexican Immigrants In Texas And Its Largest Metropolitan Areas, Ariel Ruiz Soto, Andrew Selee

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Much of the U.S. debate on Mexican immigration has focused on low-skilled immigrants, who have composed the largest share of that population, but recent data suggest that the share of college-educated immigrants among recent Mexican arrivals is rising considerably. Texas has long been a gateway for Mexican immigration in part because of proximity and its deep economic ties to Mexico.

As more Mexican immigrants settle in Texas, especially in its metropolitan areas, governments and local communities stand to gain valuable contributions of an increasingly educated work force. Knowing the profile of highly skilled Mexican immigrants can inform policy-making decisions and …

The Decline In Mexican Migration To The Us: Why Is Texas Different?, Alfredo Cuecuecha, Darryl Mcleod, Norma Fuentes, Ulyses Balderas

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

No abstract provided.

Institutions, Trade, And Economic Prosperity: An Examination Of The U.S. And Mexican States, Dean Stansel, Meg Patrick Tuszynski

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

We provide the first subnational-level examination of the relationship between the presence of policies and institutions that are consistent with economic freedom and trade volume. To do so, we create a new comprehensive dataset detailing export activity between each U.S. state (that is, for the volume of trade between Texas and Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, etc.) and between each U.S. state and each Mexican state (Texas and Chihuahua, Texas and Coahuila, etc.). Our empirical strategy allows us to explore what effect institutions have on both interstate trade and cross-border trade, and also what impact the national border has on …

Are Mexican And U.S. Workers Complements Or Substitutes?, Raymond Robertson

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Fears of NAFTA in the United States were largely based on the belief that Mexicans and U.S. workers were substitutes: lowering barriers would allow competing products into the United States and investment outflows that would cause U.S. workers to lose their jobs to Mexico. While this may have been true when NAFTA first went into effect, subsequent production specialization between Mexico and the United States may suggest that Mexican and U.S. workers are now complements. In particular, NAFTA may have induced production restructuring throughout North America to generate integrated value chains in which workers in the three NAFTA countries work …

Does Migration Cause Income Inequality?, Pia M. Orrenius, Madeline Zavodny

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Inequality has been rising across the world in recent decades. Latin America has been an exception to what otherwise seems to be the prevalent trend in the U.S., Europe and Asia. In the U.S. the rise in inequality since the 1970s has coincided with the rise in Mexican immigration. In Mexico, inequality has been declining since the mid-1990s, a period during which emigration to the U.S. first increased to historic highs and then declined steeply.

Our review of the literature suggests that low-skilled immigration to the U.S., much of it from Mexico, has only played a minor role in rising …

¿La Migración Causa Desigualdad De Ingresos?, Pia M. Orrenius, Madeline Zavodny

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

La desigualdad ha aumentado en décadas recientes a lo largo del mundo. Latinoamérica ha sido una excepción a lo que, por lo demás, parece ser la tendencia prevalente en los Estados Unidos, Europa y Asia. En los Estados Unidos, la acentuación de la desigualdad desde los años 1970 ha coincidido con el aumento de la migración mexicana. En México, la desigualdad ha disminuido desde mediados de la década 1990, periodo durante el que la emigración a los Estados Unidos se elevó, primero a niveles nunca antes visto, para luego declinar de manera abrupta.

Nuestra revisión bibliográfica sugiere que la inmigración …

Economic Integration In North America: Changes In Us Trade Policy And The Effects On Texas Regional Exports To Mexico, Jorge Eduardo Mendoza

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Texas is the leading US state exporter to Mexico, trading oil products, automobile components and electronics. The USMCA will impose a restructuring of the North American supply chains to meet the new input content requirements. In order to evaluate the impact of the changes in tariffs arising from the new rules of origin requirements, an econometric model with different tariff scenarios was estimated. The estimations indicate that the distance to Texas and the size of the economies of the states of Mexico are factors that impact Texas exports to Mexico. Tariffs under the USMCA would have a minor but positive …