Immigration and the School System

Abstract

Immigration is an important feature of many societies, and it has wideranging effects on the education systems of host countries. There is now a large empirical literature, but very little theoretical work on this topic. We study a model of family immigration in a framework where school quality and student outcomes are determined endogenously. Within this framework, we address two research questions. First, we study the effect of immigration on the different dimensions of the school system, such as student effort, parental involvement, school incentives and resources and how the endogenous response of the school system to immigration is interrelated with both immigrants’ and natives’ educational choices. Second, we explain the selection of immigrants when schooling considerations are relevant for the immigration decision and discuss the selection effect of different immigration policies