McKinnish, Terra. 2005. “Importing the Poor: Welfare Magnetism and Cross-Border Welfare Migration.” Journal of Human Resources 40(1):57-76.

I test for welfare-induced migration by comparing AFDC participation in border counties to interior counties within states. If migration costs are lower for border-county residents, border counties on the high-benefit side of a state border should have higher welfare participation relative to interior counties of the same state. Border counties on the low-benefit side should have lower welfare participation relative to interior counties of the same state. The results obtained using county-level data from 1970–90 indicate that having a neighbor with benefits that are $100 lower increases AFDC expenditures in border counties by 4.0–6.8 percent relative to interior counties.

Terra McKinnish is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Colorado. The author is grateful for helpful comments from Dwayne Benjamin, Woody Eckard, Jennifer Hunt, Bruce Meyer, Seth Sanders, Jeff Zax, and an anonymous referee as well as comments from participants in the IRP summer workshop and seminar participants at CU-Boulder, CU-Denver and the University of Toronto. Stephanie Martin and Peter Harllee provided valuable assistance with the data. Financial support from the National Science Foundation under grant SES-0196113 is gratefully acknowledged. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning October 2005 through September 2008 from the author at UCB 256, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0256 mckinnis@colorado.edu.