Professional Affiliation

Professor of Social Science, Princeton University

Expert Bio

Dr. Ricardo Mora-Tellez was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Office of Population Research (OPR) from 2017 to 2020 at Princeton University. During that period he worked for the Mexican Migration Project (MMP). He holds a Ph.D. in Population Studies at El Colegio de México (COLMEX) in 2015. He studied a Master’s degree in Economics, at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE). He worked as a Deputy Director at the General Secretary of the National Population Council (CONAPO) in the International Migration Unit, he also worked as an adviser at the H. Chamber of Deputies in the LIX Legislature. His last publication was: “A Quick End to a Long Story: Networks and Mexican Migration during the Great Recession”, published in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, in July 2019. His Research Interests are: International Migration Flows, Mexican Migration, Return Migration, Migration Policy and Forced Migration.

Wilson Center Project

Is the Decline of Unauthorized Mexican Immigrants the Result of Worse Employment Prospects as a Consequence of the U.S. Recession or More Permanent Changes in the Mexican Economy and Demographics?

Project Summary

Since 2008, the United States (U.S.) experienced a deep economic recession. One of its consequences was a sharp decline in the number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. Some argue that this migration has decreased in response to adverse economic conditions and is explained by trends in the U.S. employment rate and industrial sector performance. However, owing to the fact that most of these studies used global economic performance measures, they do not fully or accurately address the recession’s effect on this specific population. Instead of using industrial sector performance or the global unemployment rate, this project aims to calculate more accurately the probability of migration by assigning the local unemployment rate to each potential migrant to determine whether the decline of this flow is the result of worse employment prospects stemming from the U.S. recession or is due to more permanent changes in the Mexican economy and demographic conditions.

Major Publications

A Quick End to a Long Story: Networks and Mexican Migration during the Great Recession. Journal The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July 2019, Vol. 684, ISSN 0002-7162.

“La reversibilidad del flujo migratorio de México hacia Estados Unidos inducidio por la información de las redes migratorias", Journal Huellas de la Migración, Vol. 2, Nom. 3, June 2017, ISSN 2594-2832. (The Reversibility of the Migratory Flow from Mexico to the United States Induced by the Information of the Migratory Networks).

“Duración de los viajes migratorios de mexicanos indocumentados en Estados Unidos bajo la política de reforzamiento de la frontera”, Journal Papeles de Población, Vol. 23, Nom. 94, Oct. 2017, ISSN 2448-7147. (Duration of Migratory Trips of Undocumented Mexicans in the United States under the Border Enforcement Policy).