This monographic, two-volume work arises from a research project into the economic and legal dimensions of immigration, with particular reference to the situation of Catalonia.The first volume, focusing on the social and economic sides of immigration, is divided into three main sections: the first looks at the internal factors in countries of origin that give rise to migratory flows; the second examines how the relative social wellbeing of the recipient country influences the decision to migrate, and particularly how far immigrants’ knowledge of public welfare provision and the personal or ethnic networks of preceding migrant waves may exercise a lure effect; finally, the third section centres on key aspects of the relation between migration and social expenditure in the recipient country with regard to education, health, housing and the labour market.

The book then closes with a case study looking at the effects of immigration in the Guissona area of Lleida.The estimates presented in this first volume confirm such controversial questions as the fact that the main explanatory variable for immigration is the number of immigrants from a given country already living in the recipient country, ahead of other factors like the per capita income gap separating the two or the latter’s supply of public services.