title: Does immigration have a Matthew Effect? A cross-national analysis of international migration and international income inequality, 1960-2005.
abstract: This paper empirically assesses how immigration affects international inequality by testing the relationship between immigration and national economic development across countries in different world income groups. A series of cross-national, longitudinal analyses demonstrate that, on average, immigration has a rather small, but positive long-term effect on development levels. However, the findings also indicate that immigration has a Matthew Effect (Merton, 1968) in the world-economy: immigration disproportionately benefits higher-income countries. Moreover, the wealthiest countries reap the largest gains from immigration. Thus, from the perspective of destination countries, immigration does not appear to be a panacea for international inequality. Instead, the results indicate that immigration actually reproduces, and even exacerbates, international inequality.
authors.affiliation: Kansas State University, Department of Sociology, 204 Waters Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA. Electronic address: mattrs@ksu.edu.
authors.forename: Matthew R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Sanderson