This dissertation brings together three independent essays that employ Mexican and U.S. Census data to explain the migration of Mexicans, while moving toward a conceptual integration of alternative theoretical traditions. To address internal migration within Mexico, essay 1 utilizes a locational choice model to test the self-selection hypothesis of the human capital model of migration, finding that as expected, Mexican internal migrants are sensitive to regional variations in returns to skill. The macro-level results of essay 1 also suggest that there is an over-supply of more

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highly educated people in Mexico’s richer regions, as well as an over-supply of less educated people in poorer regions. This imbalance caused richer regions to export many highly skilled individuals to poorer regions and vice versa. To address the international migration of Mexicans, essays 2 and 3 test Light’s network saturation and deflection theories, using empirical data to ascertain whether/how well their predictions can explain the dispersion of Mexican immigrants away from traditional settlement states and toward new settlement states. Performing wage- and human-capital analyses as well and a settlement choice analysis, the findings of essays 2 and 3 suggest that the economic and political factors predicted by these theories did contribute to this dispersion. Essay 2 finds that Mexicans earned less, paid higher rents, and had lower returns to skill where Mexicans were more densely settled; and essay 3 finds that Mexicans were less likely to settle in states that did implement above-federal minimum wages, thereby presumably reducing the employment opportunities of Mexican immigrants there. Additionally, the results of essays 2 and 3 suggest that the dispersion of Mexican immigrants to non-prime U.S. states is consistent with the expectation of the self-selection hypothesis that Mexican international migrants are likewise sensitive to regional variations in returns to skill. The results of all three essays, thus, support the related and compatible theories tested, and looking at these theories together, when thinking about the behavior, over time, of large, network-driven migration flows in response to changing economic and political circumstances may be able to contribute to a future theoretical reconciliation at a higher unity.