Ack: We can look at thousands of thousands of migrants in the inthe census, in the census records. And then once you did that, how do you link them to taxes or census records? You don't have a numerical idea like a social security number. So we have to think, what about a person is so fixed that it won't change by the next census? Ack: There's a variety of algorithms and approaches out there,. i but in theory, you can understand how you might be able to finda liobustan am ten years later, a born in massachusetts sort of thing.
Immigration to the United States, say Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan, is more novel than short story: It takes decades for new immigrants to catch up economically. But their kids on average thrive economically and have higher rates of upward mobility than American-born kids. Abramitzky and Boustan talk about their book Streets of Gold with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Using an extraordinary data set of millions of Americans, Boustan and Abramitzky find that today's immigrants and their children are surprisingly similar to yesterday's.