Immigration and the Occupational Choice of Natives: a Factor Proportions Approach

This paper evaluates the impact of immigration on the labor market outcomes of natives in France over the period 1962-1999. Combining large (up to 25%) extracts from six censuses and data from Labor Force Surveys, we exploit the variation in the immigrant share across education/experience cells and over time to identify the impact of immigration. In the Borjas (2003) specification, we find that a 10% increase in immigration increases native wages by 3%. However, as the number of immigrants and the number of natives are positively and strongly correlated across cells, the immigrant share may not be a good measure of the immigration shock. When the log of natives and the log of immigrants are used as regressors instead, the impact of immigration on natives’ wages is still positive but much smaller, and natives’ wages are negatively related to the number of natives. To understand this asymmetry and the positive impact of immigration on wages, we explore the link between immigration and the occupational distribution of natives within education/experience cells. Our results suggest that immigration leads to the reallocation of natives to better-paid occupations within education/experience cells.Immigration, Impact, France.

Employment, wage structure, and the economic cycle: differences between immigrants and natives in Germany and the UK

Differences in the cyclical pattern of employment and wages of immigrants relative to natives have largely gone unnoticed in the migration literature. In this paper we show that immigrants and natives react differently to the economic cycle. Based on over two decades of micro data, our investigation is for two of the largest immigrant receiving countries in Europe which at the same time are characterised by different immigrant populations as well as different economic cycles, Germany and the UK. Understanding the magnitude, nature and possible causes of differences in responses is relevant for assessing the economic performance of immigrant communities over time. We show that there are substantial differences in cyclical responses between immigrants and natives. Our analysis illustrates the magnitude of these differences, while distinguishing between different groups of immigrants. Differences in responses may be due to differences in the skill distribution between immigrant groups and natives, or differences in demand for immigrants and natives of the same skills due to differential allocation of immigrants and natives across industries and regions. We demonstrate that substantial differences in cyclical patterns remain, even within narrowly defined groups. Finally, we estimate a more structural factor type model that, using regional variation in economic conditions, separates responses to economic shocks from a secular trend and allows us to obtain a summary measure for these differences within education groups

Immigration and the Occupational Choice of Natives: A Factor Proportions Approach

This paper evaluates the impact of immigration on the labor market outcomes of natives in France over the period 1962-1999. Combining large (up to 25%) extracts from six censuses and data from Labor Force Surveys, we exploit the variation in the immigrant share across education/experience cells and over time to identify the impact of immigration. In the Borjas (2003) specification, we find that a 10% increase in immigration increases native wages by 3%. However, as the number of immigrants and the number of natives are positively and strongly correlated across cells, the immigrant share may not be a good measure of the immigration shock. When the log of natives and the log of immigrants are used as regressors instead, the impact of immigration on natives' wages is still positive but much smaller, and natives' wages are negatively related to the number of natives. To understand this asymmetry and the positive impact of immigration on wages, we explore the link between immigration and the occupational distribution of natives within education/ experience cells. Our results suggest that immigration leads to the reallocation of natives to better-paid occupations within education/experience cells.Immigration, occupations

The Over-Education of UK Immigrants: Evidence from the Labour Force Survey

We investigate the incidence of over-education, as well as the effect on earnings, for immigrants and natives drawn from the Labour Force Survey between 1993 and 2003. This paper investigates whether immigrants are more or less likely to be over and under-educated than are natives and if there is any evidence of economic assimilation in such propensity differences. In addition we examine whether immigrants exhibit a larger or smaller earnings for over-education compared to natives. We find that native born non-whites and immigrants are more likely to be over-educated, even after conditioning on all other socio-economic factors (including ethnicity and English speaking country of origin). However, we also find evidence of assimilation in the incidence of immigrant over-education towards that of natives. Finally, we find that over-education implies a lower return to earnings for immigrants and non-white natives, compared to native born whites. The largest loss in earnings due to over-education actually applies to white education entrants, moreover we find no significant return to over-education for non-white labour market entrants, once we distinguish between these two immigrant groups

The effects of immigration on U.S. wages and rents: a general equilibrium approach

In this paper we document a strong positive correlation of immigration flows with changes in average wages and average house rents for native residents across U.S. states. Instrumental variables estimates reveal that the correlations are compatible with a causal interpretation from immigration to wages and rents of natives. Separating the effects of immigrants on natives of different schooling levels we find positive effects on the wages and rents of highly educated and small effects on the wages (negative) and rents (positive) of less educated. We propose a model where natives and immigrants of three different education levels interact in production in a central district and live in the surrounding region. In equilibrium the inflow of immigrants has a positive productive effect on natives due to complementarities in production as well as a positive competition effect on rents. The model calibrated and simulated with U.S.-states data matches most of the estimated effects of immigrants on wages and rents of natives in the period 1990-2005. This validation suggests the proposed model as a useful tool to evaluate the impacts of alternative immigration scenarios on U.S. wages and rents

Moment of Truth: The Special Relationship of the Federal Government to Alaska Natives and Their Tribes — Update and Issue Analysis

Beyond considering the present state of the statutory relationship between the federal government and Alaska Natives, this analysis focuses on the power of Congress and the Executive Branch to change the relationship. Absent congressional acts which mandate some level of federal responsibility to Natives, the Executive Branch possesses an independent power over Native affairs which can be exercised to expand, reduce, or deny a special relationship as an enforceable federal obligation. Includes an appendix by Stephen Haycox, "Historical Aspects of the Federal Obligation to Alaska Natives."Report prepared pursuant to a planning grant from Rural Alaska Community Action Program, Inc., to Alaska Federation of Natives.Prologue / I. The Current Trust Relationship / II. ANCSA: Its Role in an Age of Self-Determination / III. The Threat of Termination / IV. Conclusion / Footnotes / Appendix I: "Historical Aspects of the Federal Obligation to Alaska Natives" by Stephen Hayco

Complements or substitutes? Immigrant and native task specialization in Spain

Learning about the impact that immigration has on the labor market of the receiving nation is a topic of major concern, particularly in Spain, where immigration has more than doubled from 4 percent to roughly 10 percent of the population within a decade. Yet, very little is known about the impact that large immigrant inflows have had on the labor market outcomes of Spanish natives. Furthermore, most studies assume that natives and immigrants are perfect substitutes within skill groups –a questionable assumption given recent findings in the literature. In this paper, we first document that foreign-born workers are not perfect substitutes of similarly skilled native Spanish workers, which may help explain why immigration has not significantly lowered natives’ wages. Instead, immigration has affected the occupational distribution of natives. Specifically, owing to the comparative advantage of foreign-born workers in manual as opposed to interactive tasks, natives relocated to occupations with a lower content of manual tasks –such as technical and alike professional occupations, clerical support jobs, and sales and service occupations. Yet, possibly owing to the significant and simultaneous reduction in the manual to interactive task supply resulting from the increase in the share of native female workers, the increase in the relative supply of manual to interactive tasks from foreign-born workers does not appear to have significantly changed the overall manual to interactive task supply in the Spanish economy

The Effects of Immigration on U.S. Wages and Rents: A General Equilibrium Approach.

In this paper we document a strong positive correlation of immigration flows with changes in average wages and average house rents for native residents across U.S. states. Instrumental variables estimates reveal that the correlations are compatible with a causal interpretation from immigration to wages and rents of natives. Separating the effects of immigrants on natives of different schooling levels we find positive effects on the wages and rents of highly educated and small effects on the wages (negative) and rents (positive) of less educated. We propose a model where natives and immigrants of three different education levels interact in production in a central district and live in the surrounding region. In equilibrium the inflow of immigrants has a positive productive effect on natives due to complementarities in production as well as a positive competition effect on rents. The model calibrated and simulated with U.S.-states data matches most of the estimated effects of immigrants on wages and rents of natives in the period 1990-2005. This validation suggests the proposed model as a useful tool to evaluate the impacts of alternative immigration scenarios on U.S. wages and rents.Wages, Rents, Housing Prices, U.S. States

The Effects of Immigration on California's Labor Market

As of 2004 California employed almost 30% of all foreign born workers in the U.S. and was the state with the largest percentage of immigrants in the labor force. It also received a very large number of Mexican and uneducated immigrants during the recent decades. If immigration harms the labor opportunities of natives, especially the least skilled ones, in the form of downward wage pressure, pressure to move out of the state or increased likelihood to loose their jobs, California was the place where these effects should have been stronger. By analyzing the behavior of population, employment and wages of U.S. natives in California in the period 1960-2004 we address this issue. We consider workers of different education and age as imperfectly substitutable in production and we exploit the differences in immigration across these groups to infer their impact on US natives. Our estimates use international migration to other U.S. states as instrument for international migration to California to isolate the ”supply-driven” variation of immigrants across skills and identify the labor market responses of natives. We find that in the considered period immigration did not produce significant migratory response or loss of jobs of natives. Moreover we find that immigrants were imperfect substitutes for natives of similar education and age, hence they stimulated, rather than harmed the demand and wages of U.S. native workers.Immigration, Skill Complementarities, Employment, Inter-state migration, wage effects.

Does immigration affect wages? A look at occupation-level evidence

Previous research has reached mixed conclusions about whether higher levels of immigration reduce the wages of natives. This paper reexamines this question using data from the Current Population Survey and the Immigration and Naturalization Service and focuses on differential effects by skill level. Using occupation as a proxy for skill, we find that an increase in the fraction of workers in an occupation group who are foreign born tends to lower the wages of low-skilled natives—particularly after controlling for endogeneity—but does not have a negative effect among skilled natives.>