About

Santiago Pérez is an associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Economics and a Research Associate at the NBER. He specializes in economic history and applied microeconomics. His research activity primarily focuses on economic history and applied microeconomics, with particular emphasis on immigrant assimilation during the age of mass migration and on historical social mobility. Santiago Pérez teaches courses in the economics of international migrations, contributing to the academic community through his research and teaching at UC Davis.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Demographic economics
• Data Mining
• Sociology
• Economics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Machine Learning
• Political Science
• Optics
• Physics
• Law
• Mathematics
• Demography
• Economic geography
• Geology
• Labour economics
• Geography
• Econometrics
• Economic growth

Selected publications

• Data and Code for: Law-Abiding Immigrants: The Incarceration Gap Between Immigrants and the US-born, 1870–2020

  ICPSR Data Holdings · 2026-01-17

  datasetOpen access

  We provide the first nationally representative long-run series (1870<b>–</b>2020) of incarceration rates for immigrants and the US-born. As a group, immigrants have had lower incarceration rates than the US-born for 150 years. Moreover, relative to the US-born, immigrants’ incarceration rates have declined since 1960: immigrants today are 60% less likely to be incarcerated (30% relative to US-born whites). This relative decline occurred among immigrants from all regions and cannot be explained by changes in immigrants’ observable characteristics or immigration policy. Instead, the decline is part of a broader divergence of outcomes between less-educated immigrants and their US-born counterparts.

  PublisherDOI

• Data and Code for: Law-Abiding Immigrants: The Incarceration Gap Between Immigrants and the US-born, 1870–2020

  ICPSR Data Holdings · 2026-01-17

  datasetOpen access

  We provide the first nationally representative long-run series (1870<b>–</b>2020) of incarceration rates for immigrants and the US-born. As a group, immigrants have had lower incarceration rates than the US-born for 150 years. Moreover, relative to the US-born, immigrants’ incarceration rates have declined since 1960: immigrants today are 60% less likely to be incarcerated (30% relative to US-born whites). This relative decline occurred among immigrants from all regions and cannot be explained by changes in immigrants’ observable characteristics or immigration policy. Instead, the decline is part of a broader divergence of outcomes between less-educated immigrants and their US-born counterparts.

  PublisherDOI

• Migration and immigrant outcomes at the destination

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2026-05-14

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter summarizes recent work on the social and economic integration of immigrants. It focuses on studies investigating this issue from a historical perspective and using quantitative methods. Section 1 reviews methodological issues related to the measurement of immigrant integration. Section 2 reviews the descriptive evidence on historical integration. Section 3 reviews the evidence on the drivers of immigrants’ integration. Section 4 concludes and suggests potential directions for research.

  PublisherDOI

• Daughters as Safety Net? Family Responses to Parental Employment Shocks: Evidence from Alcohol Prohibition

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  We study the impact of Federal alcohol Prohibition in 1919 on workers in the alcohol industry and their families using newly linked census records that allow us to follow spouses, sons and daughters. Immediately after Prohibition, men previously working in alcohol-related industries were less likely to be in the labor force, and when working, employed in lower skilled occupations. By 1940, 21 years after Prohibition, workers were still more likely to be in unskilled occupations, but they were more likely to be employed, consistent with delayed retirement. In the short run, sons are largely unaffected but in the long run, they complete slightly more schooling and earn more. Interestingly, daughters were more likely to remain at home, delay marriage and be employed, even 20 years later. These effects are driven by daughters living at home in 1920. Daughters, not sons, appear to have acted as the family's safety net in this period before public provision of relief.

  PublisherDOI

• Finding John Smith: Using Extra Information for Historical Record Linkage

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-07-01 · 3 citations

  reportOpen access

  We introduce a new rule-based linking method for historical Census records.We augment earlier algorithms based on name, age and place of birth (Abramitzky, Boustan, Eriksson, 2012, or "basic ABE"), with five matching characteristics -middle initial, county of residence, and spouse and parents' names.Relative to basic ABE, ABE-Extra Information ("ABE-EI") greatly increases match rates, improves accuracy and is similarly representative of the population on most attributes, with geographic mobility being one important exception.Relative to machine learning algorithms, ABE-EI has somewhat lower match rates, improved representativeness, and offers full replicability.We also create the first ABE-based links for women.

  PublisherDOI

• Climbing the Ivory Tower: How Socio-Economic Background Shapes Academia

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Recombinant Mycobacterium bovis BCG-Based HIV Vaccine: Failures and Promising Approaches for a Successful Vaccine Strategy

  Vaccines · 2025-06-03 · 1 citations

  reviewOpen access

  During 2022, AIDS claimed a life every minute and about 9.2 million HIV-infected people were not on treatment. In addition, a person living with HIV is estimated to be 20-30 times more susceptible to developing active tuberculosis. Every year, 130,000 infants are newly infected, with vertical transmission being the main cause of pediatric HIV infection. Thus, the development of an effective, safe, and accessible vaccine for neonates and/or adults is an urgent need to prevent or control HIV infection or progression to AIDS. An effective HIV vaccine should induce long-lasting mucosal immunity, broadly neutralizing antibodies, innate immunity, and robust stimulation of CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses. Recombinant BCG is a promising live-attenuated bacterial vaccine vector because of its capacity to stimulate T-cell immunity. As a slow-growing microorganism, it provides prolonged low-level antigenic exposure upon infecting macrophages and APCs, potentially stimulating both effector and memory T-cell responses. BCG is considered safe and is currently administered to 80% of infants in countries where it is part of the national immunization program. Additionally, BCG offers several benefits as a live vaccine vehicle since it is cost-effective, easy to mass-produce, and heat stable. It is also well-suited for newborns, as maternal antibodies do not interfere with its efficacy. Furthermore, BCG has a strong safety profile, having been administered to over three billion people as a TB vaccine. In this review, we provide an extensive summary of the literature relating to immunogenicity studies in animal models performed since 2011. Moreover, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the key factors influencing the design of recombinant BCG as a live vaccine vehicle: (i) expression vectors; (ii) selection of HIV immunogen; (iii) promoters to regulate gene expression; (iv) BCG strain and BCG codon optimization; (v) genetic plasmid stability; (vi) influence of preexisting immunity, route, and dose immunization; and (vii) safety profile.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Aiptasia spawning and embryo and larvae handling - Pringle lab v1

  2025-05-29

  articleOpen access

  This protocol seeks to provide all information needed to allow regular spawning of Aiptasia and safe handling of the spawn. This fork contains improvements and more details compared to the original version. It is based on the protocol described in Grawunder et al., 2015.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants in 15 Destination Countries

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Finding John Smith: Using Extra Information for Historical Record Linkage

  Explorations in Economic History · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ran Abramitzky

  Stanford University

  51 shared

• Kimmo Eriksson

  Mälardalen University

  47 shared

• Leah Platt Boustan

  Princeton University

  44 shared

• Diana Moreira

  University of California, Davis

  39 shared

• Myera Rashid

  27 shared

• Darío Rodrigues

  University of Buenos Aires

  22 shared

• C. Bonifazi

  National University of General San Martín

  18 shared

• Fernando Chierchie

  Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

  17 shared

Education

• PhD, School of civil, environmental and mining engineering

  University of Adelaide