ABSTRACT
Empirical Methods in the Economics of International Immigration*
In this chapter we provide a brief overview of the main empirical tools used by economists to
study international migration. We begin by exploring the three broad research areas that
economists examine when researching immigration. We then explore the strengths and
shortcomings of the standard methods, and highlight new methods that will likely become
more common in future work in the field. We divide the most common tools used in the
empirical literature into four broad categories: (1) Ordinary Least Squares and Inference, (2)
Difference-in-Difference Estimation, (3) Instrumental Variables Techniques, and (4) Recent
Developments and Distributional Estimators. We use recent empirical work to highlight and
explain each method, and provide sources for researchers interested in further information on
each topic.

Fernando A. Lozano
Pomona College
and IZA
Michael D. Steinberger
Pomona College