| This dissertation provides new theory and evidence on the relationship between emigration and politics through three related essays.;In the first essay, I examine the relationship between migration and political change using evidence from Mexico's twentieth-century agrarian reform. The agrarian reform was a transformative redistributive program that began during a time of high emigration between Mexico and the United States. These migration patterns were interrupted by the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. Using a research design similar to a difference-in-differences approach, I show that there was a large differential acceleration in land redistribution in high- relative to low-emigration states after the closure of the U.S. labor market during the Depression. Drawing on historical research from archival and secondary sources, I argue that this acceleration can be traced to the effect of ongoing emigration in reducing social pressure for reform during the 1920s and to the role of repatriates in the agrarian movement during the Depression.;In the second essay, I present a theoretical model to illuminate some of the political tensions over emigration policy, focusing on the effect of exit options on citizen coordination. The global-games model highlights two mechanisms through which emigration opportunities can reduce political mobilization: those with access to emigration options are less likely to participate in collective action given their profitable exit opportunities, and the common knowledge that some citizens have access to exit options reduces everyone's confidence that collective action can be successful. As a result, all citizens become less likely to mobilize, making successful collective action less likely.;In the third essay, I examine the impact of emigration on public service provision using household- and community-level data from contemporary Mexico. I use an instrumental-variables empirical strategy based on the role of pre-existing transportation and migrant networks in facilitating future emigration from a household or community. I show that, though emigration increases the wealth of sending households and communities, the relationship between migration and public services is ambiguous. I present some empirical evidence that the positive wealth impacts of migration might be offset by its adverse impacts on community governance. |
