Does opening the door to US citizenship for unauthorized immigrants cause out-of-control “chain migration”? We address this question using variation from the legalization programs of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). Exploiting IRCA’s introduction and differences across metropolitan areas in program intensity, we estimate that each IRCA-legalized Mexican was responsible for the subsequent immigration and legal admission of one relative, in total, through 2019. Most sponsored relatives were immediate family, and the adult sponsorship rate is inconsistent with out-of-control chain migration. Estimates using cross-country variation are substantively similar and suggest limited demand for reunification of extended families.

In the late 1930s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) launched a campaign to equalize Black and white teacher salaries in the de jure segregated schools of the American South. We estimate the effect of teacher pay on educational attainment exploiting variation in Black salary gains over time across Southern counties with different Black enrollment shares and across states by whether subsequent policy reinforced or resisted court rulings favorable to the NAACP. Using newly collected county panel data, we find that Black teacher salary gains contributed to the large reductions in racial inequality in school enrollment and grade progression in the South at midcentury.