Illegal migration, border enforcement, and growth

This paper analyzes the economic consequences of illegal migrants in the context of a model of trade and growth. In the model, capital and domestic labor are mobile sectors while illegal migrants are sector-specific. These assumptions give rise to a production possibility curve (with migrants) that lies partially inside the zero migration production possibility frontier. It is this feature of the model which generates ambiguous results regarding the relation between domestic welfare, illegal migrants, and enforcement. The steady-state growth path with migrants may lie above or below the balanced growth path without migrants.