Investing in the Homeland: cross-border investments and immigrant wealth in the U.S.

ABSTRACT

The ties that immigrants maintain across national borders are important indicators of both patterns of global interconnectedness and the incorporation of immigrants in their host countries. Scholars acknowledge that cross-border ties are extensive but debate the persistence of these ties following migration. We propose that simultaneously studying the home and host country financial investments of three large immigrant groups in the United States may provide unique insight into these important questions. Specifically, we study the home and host country investments of Mexican, Chinese, and Indian immigrants to the United States. We propose that home country financial ties are likely to decline over time but that host country financial ties will become stronger. However, significant and meaningful differences in these patterns are likely across the three groups we study. Using data from the New Immigrant Survey – a nationally representative multicohort longitudinal study of adult immigrants who are U.S. legal permanent residents – we find that cross-border investments are considerably less enduring than previous literature has found. However, portfolio composition and the location of critical assets vary in significant and informative ways by country of origin.

KEYWORDS:

• Wealth
• immigrants
• Chinese immigrants
• Mexican immigrants
• Indian immigrants
• finance
• assets
• wealth inequality
• homeownership
• transnationalism

Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES-1322738) that supported this research. Keister is also grateful to the Russell Sage Foundation for support that also enabled this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge a grant from the National Science Foundation [grant number SES-1322738] that supported this research. Russell Sage Foundation.