Firm level employment and the business environment in Central America's northern triangle

As the PEW Research Center reports, the trend of unauthorized immigrants to the United States (US) from Mexico and Central America has been declining. Furthermore, recent numbers show that the total number of unauthorized immigrants fell to the lowest level in more than a decade. Nevertheless, this reduction is mostly due to a decline in the number of immigrants from Mexico. While the decline of immigrants from Mexico continues, the Northern Triangle of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) was the only region that accounted for more unauthorized immigrants to the US in 2017 than 2016. Socioeconomic conditions in the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) are always presented as the prime mover behind the push to migrate to the US. Among other issues, the lack of economic opportunities seem to be the major force pushing people out of their countries in search of better conditions in the North. Using a proprietary micro-data-set from the World Bank and following a a Logit Methodology, this paper will focus on the interplay of firm level employment and the business environment in NTCA countries. This data-set captures field conditions by extracting information from those affected by business environment conditions directly, namely characteristics of business owners and firm managers. The construction of the data-set follows a stratified random sample approach, with three levels of stratification within each country: level 1. Industry; level 2. Establishment size; and level 3. Region. The analysis will follow both intra and inter-country dynamics. In other words, we will analyze conditions in different regions within each country and among countries.