Immigration

Overview
Featured Research
Featured Commentary
Publications
Research Team
Fellows
Explore

Featured Research

press

The Hoover Institution Establishes New Initiative And Names Senior Fellow To Study Immigration

October 29, 2024 featuring Paola Sapienza

via Hoover Daily Report

Articles

Understanding the Short-Run Impact of Migration on Unemployment

November 19, 2024 By Pascal Michaillat

via Analysis

learn more

Pascal Michaillat of UC Santa Cruz presents research on the short-term economic effects of immigration.

news

Hoover Hosts Inaugural Conference On Economics Of Immigration

The Hoover Institution hosted its first-ever conference on the economics of immigration from October 31‒November 1, 2024, with scholars from across the globe examining the many ways immigration…

November 15, 2024

via Hoover Daily Report

Working Papers

The Impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act on the Economic Development of the Western U.S.

September 30, 2024 By Joe Long, Carlo Medici, Nancy Qian, Marco Tabellin

Articles

The Labor Market Impact of Amnesty Programs

November 19, 2024 By George J. Borjas

via Analysis

Essays

Lessons For American Immigration Policy From The Past

October 24, 2024 By Cody Nager

via Analysis

Featured Commentary

Young Hispanic Woman in Her Twenties Proudly Displaying Her I Voted Sticker in a Co-Working Space stock photo

Articles

When It Comes To Latino Voters, It’s Time To Retire The Idea Of Demography As Destiny

October 24, 2024 By David L. Leal, Álvaro J. Corral

via The London School of Economics

Articles

Islamism And Immigration In Germany And The European Context

September 17, 2024 By Russell A. Berman

via The Caravan

learn more

Videos

Recent US Immigration: How Big? Who? What Impact?

How big is the US immigration surge in recent years? What are its fiscal and economic consequences? Join Steven Davis, as he probes these questions with economists Wendy Edelberg and Madeline…

September 18, 2024 interview with Steven J. Davis , Wendy Edelberg , Madeline Zavodny

via Economics, Applied

Videos

Immigrants And Innovation In The United States

August 21, 2024 interview with Steven J. Davis, Rebecca Diamond

via Economics, Applied

Videos

The Political Reaction To Immigration

June 12, 2024 interview with Steven J. Davis, Marco Tabellini

via Economics, Applied

Articles

Let Them In And Let Them Work

May 2, 2024 By David R. Henderson

via EconLog

Key Research Teams

learn more

J-P Conte Initiative on Immigration

Fellows in this Policy Area

David L. Leal

Senior Fellow (adjunct)

Learn more

David L. Leal

Senior Fellow (adjunct)

David L. Leal is a senior fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution and a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. His primary academic interest is Latino politics, and his work explores the political and policy implications of demographic change in the United States. He teaches classes on Latino politics, immigration policy, politics and religion, the military and American politics, and British politics and government. He has written one book, edited eight volumes, and published over fifty articles in political science and other social science journals. He has been an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in the office of a US senator, a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in Japan, and an Associate Member at Nuffield College at Oxford University. At UT-Austin, he is a Senior Fellow in the Civitas Institute and an inaugural faculty affiliate of the School of Civic Leadership. He is a member of the editorial boards of Social Science Quarterly, Education Next, Nations & Nationalism, and Journal of School Choice, and he was elected to a three-year term (2019-2022) on the Council of the American Political Science Association.

Paola Sapienza

J-P Conte Family Senior Fellow

Learn more

Paola Sapienza

J-P Conte Family Senior Fellow

Paola Sapienza is the J-P Conte Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is also a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research affiliate of the Center for Economic Policy Research, and a fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute. Sapienza’s main research focuses on the impact of cultural norms on economic decisions and outcomes. She applies these concepts to financial development, political economy, and education. Her work in financial economics sheds light on the interactions among trust, social capital, and civic capital and how cultural attitudes impact financial and economic development. Her work in education investigates how vertical and horizontal cultural transmission of preferences may affect educational outcomes. Sapienza’s work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and The Economist.

Stephen Haber

Park L. Loughlin Senior Fellow

Learn more

Stephen Haber

Park L. Loughlin Senior Fellow

Stephen Haber is the Park L. Loughlin Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the A.A. and Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, and senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. In addition, he is a professor of political science, professor of history, and professor of economics (by courtesy). Haber has spent his career investigating why the world distribution of income so uneven. His papers have been published in economics, history, political science, and law journals. He is the author of five books and the editor of six more. Haber’s most recent books include Fragile by Design with Charles Calomiris (Princeton University Press), which examines how governments and industry incumbents often craft banking regulatory policies in ways that stifle competition and increase systemic risk. The Battle Over Patents (Oxford University Press), a volume edited with Naomi Lamoreaux, documents the development of US-style patent systems and the political fights that have shaped them. His latest project focuses on a long-standing puzzle in the social sciences: why are prosperous democracies not randomly distributed across the planet, but rather, are geographically clustered? Haber and his coauthors answer this question by using geospatial tools to simulate the ecological conditions that shaped pre-industrial food production and trade. They then employ machine learning methods to elucidate the relationship between ecological conditions and the levels of economic development that emerged across the globe over the past three centuries. Haber holds a Ph.D. in history from UCLA and has been on the Stanford faculty since 1987. From 1995 to 1998, he served as associate dean for the social sciences and director of Graduate Studies of Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences. He is among Stanford’s most distinguished teachers, having been awarded every teaching prize Stanford has to offer.