Landing opportunity
Immigration and the Wage Distribution in the United States
Ken-Hou Lin & Inbar Weiss
Demography, December 2019, Pages 2229-2252
Abstract:
This article assesses the connection between immigration and wage inequality in the United States. Departing from the focus on how the average wages of different native groups respond to immigration, we examine how immigrants shape the overall wage distribution. Despite evidence indicating that an increased presence of low-skilled immigrants is associated with losses at the lower end of wage distribution, we do not observe a similar result between high-skilled immigrants and natives at the upper end. Instead, the presence of foreign-born workers, whether high- or low-skilled, is associated with substantial gains for high-wage natives, particularly those at the very top. Consequently, increased immigration is associated with greater wage dispersion.
Immigration and Wage Dynamics: Evidence from the Mexican Peso Crisis
Joan Monras
Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does the US labor market absorb low-skilled immigration? In the short run, high-immigration locations see their low-skilled labor force increase, native low-skilled wages decrease, and the relative price of rentals increase. Internal relocation dissipates this shock spatially. In the long run, the only lasting consequences are a) worse labor market conditions for low-skilled natives who entered the labor force in high-immigration years, and b) lower housing prices in high-immigrant locations, since Mexican immigrant workers disproportionately enter the construction sector and lower construction costs. I use a quantitative dynamic spatial equilibrium many-region model to obtain the policy-relevant counterfactuals.
Border Walls and Crime: Evidence From the Secure Fence Act
Ryan Abman & Hisham Foad
San Diego State University Working Paper, November 2019
Abstract:
Despite a lack of rigorous empirical evidence, reduced crime is often touted as a potential benefit in the debate over increasing border infrastructure (i.e. border walls). This paper examines the effect of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which led to unprecedented barrier construction along the US-Mexico border, on local crime using geospatial data on dates and locations of border wall construction. Synthetic control estimates across twelve border counties find no systematic evidence that border infrastructure reduced property or violent crime rates in the counties in which it was built.
The Effect of E-Verify Laws on Crime
Brandyn Churchill et al.
Vanderbilt University Working Paper, November 2019
Abstract:
E-Verify laws, which have been adopted by 23 states, require employers to verify whether new employees are eligible to legally work prior to employment. In the main, these laws are designed to reduce employment opportunities for unauthorized immigrants, reduce incentives for their immigration, and increase employment and earnings for low-skilled natives. This study explores the impact of state E-Verify laws on crime. Using agency-by-month data from the 2004 to 2015 National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS), we find that the enactment of E-Verify is associated with a 5 to 10 percent reduction in property crimes involving Hispanic arrestees, an effect driven by universal E-Verify mandates that extend to private employers. Supplemental analyses from the Current Population Survey (CPS) suggest that E-Verify-induced increases in employment of low-skilled natives of Hispanic descent, and outmigration of younger Hispanics are important channels. We find no evidence that crime was displaced to nearby U.S. jurisdictions without E-Verify or that violent crime was impacted by E-Verify mandates. Moreover, neither arrests nor labor market outcomes of white or African American adults were affected by E-Verify laws. The magnitudes of our estimates suggest that E-Verify mandates generated $491 million in social benefits of reduced crime to the United States.
The Effects of Immigration on the Economy: Lessons from the 1920s Border Closure
Ran Abramitzky et al.
NBER Working Paper, December 2019
Abstract:
In the 1920s, the United States substantially reduced immigrant entry by imposing country-specific quotas. We compare local labor markets with more or less exposure to the national quotas due to differences in initial immigrant settlement. A puzzle emerges: the earnings of existing US-born workers declined after the border closure, despite the loss of immigrant labor supply. We find that more skilled US-born workers - along with unrestricted immigrants from Mexico and Canada - moved into affected urban areas, completely replacing European immigrants. By contrast, the loss of immigrant workers encouraged farmers to shift toward capital-intensive agriculture and discouraged entry from unrestricted workers.
The Effects of Foreign-Born Peers in US High Schools and Middle Schools
Jason Fletcher et al.
NBER Working Paper, November 2019
Abstract:
The multi-decade growth and spatial dispersion of immigrant families in the United States has shifted the composition of US schools, reshaping the group of peers with whom students age through adolescence. US-born students are more likely to have foreign-born peers and foreign-born students are more likely to be educated outside of enclaves. This study examines the short-term and long-term impact of being educated with immigrant peers, for both US-born and foreign-born students. We leverage a quasi-experimental research design that uses across-grade, within-school variation in cohort composition for students in the Add Health study. We describe effects on a broad set of education, social, and health outcomes. For US-born students, we find little evidence that having immigrant peers affects a wide array of outcomes, either in adolescence or in adulthood. For foreign-born students, attending school with other immigrant students is protective against risky health behaviors and social isolation, relative to native born students. However, foreign-born students’ language skills measured with Picture-Vocabulary Test scores are negatively affected by attending school with a larger share of other immigrant students. The negative effect on vocabulary scores persists through young adulthood but does not translate into reductions in most longer-run socioeconomic outcomes, including earnings or the economic status of their residential neighborhoods.
Portrayals of Immigrants and Refugees in U.S. News Media: Visual Framing and its Effect on Emotions and Attitudes
Scott Parrott et al.
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, December 2019, Pages 677-697
Abstract:
This research explores the effects of visual representations of immigrants and refugees in U.S. news outlets. Study 1 examined news photographs about immigrants and refugees that were shared on Twitter by regional news outlets in all 50 states. Most photos contained either a human interest frame, featuring immigrants and refugees as everyday people, or a political frame, showcasing politicians. Study 2’s experiment determined the effects of these visuals on participants’ emotions and, in turn, their attitudes toward immigrants and refugees. The political frame increased negative emotions, leading to negative attitudes. The human interest frame increased positive emotions, enhancing positive attitudes.
Immigration Demand and the Boomerang of Deportation Policies
Christian Ambrosius & David Leblang
University of Virginia Working Paper, November 2019
Abstract:
What causes the demand for migration into the United States? We argue for, and demonstrate the existence of, a vicious cycle of US immigration policy and migration between the United States and countries from Latin America and the Caribbean. Our argument is simple: deportation of convicts from the United States leads to violence in the deportees’ home country which, in turn, increases the demand for that country’s natives to seek entry into the United States. We test this argument utilizing a nested research design based on cross-country panel data for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as subnational administrative and individual survey data from the case of El Salvador. At the cross-country level, we first estimate the effect of deportations on home country violence and find a strong positive effect of the lagged inflow of convicts on violence, but not for the inflow of non-convicts. In the second step, we show that the predicted level of home country violence helps explain the demand for entry into the United States. Municipal level and survey data from El Salvador complement the cross-country study and illustrate the export of gangs from the United States as one specific mechanism of how the deportation boomerang works. In the first step regression, we predict the contagion of gangs along migration corridors following large-scale deportations to El Salvador. In the second step regression, we use survey data to explain migration intentions as well as high rates of actual migration as a result of gang-related violence in El Salvador.
Please Call Me John: Name Choice and the Assimilation of Immigrants in the United States, 1900-1930
Pedro Carneiro, Sokbae Lee & Hugo Reis
Labour Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The majority of immigrants to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century adopted American first names. In this paper we study the economic determinants of name choice, by relating the propensity of immigrants to carry an American first name to the local concentration of their compatriots and local labor market conditions. We find that high concentrations of immigrants of a given nationality discouraged members of that nationality from taking American names, in particular for more recent arrivals. In contrast, labor market conditions for immigrants do not seem to be associated with more frequent name changes among immigrants.
The economic assimilation of Irish Famine migrants to the United States
William Collins & Ariell Zimran
Explorations in Economic History, forthcoming
Abstract:
The repeated failure of Ireland's potato crop in the late 1840s led to a major famine and sparked a surge in migration to the US. We build a new dataset of Irish immigrants and their sons by linking males from 1850 to 1880 US census records. For comparison, we also link German and British immigrants, their sons, and males from US native-headed households. We document a decline in the observable human capital of famine-era Irish migrants compared to pre-famine Irish migrants and to other groups in the 1850 census, as well as worse labor market outcomes. The disparity in labor market outcomes persists into the next generation when immigrants’ and natives’ sons are compared in 1880. Nonetheless, we find strong evidence of intergenerational convergence in that famine-era Irish sons experienced a much smaller gap in occupational status in 1880 than their fathers did in 1850. The disparities are even smaller when the Irish children are compared to those from observationally similar native white households. A descriptive analysis of mobility for the children of the famine Irish indicates that having a more Catholic surname and being born in Ireland were associated with less upward mobility. Our results contribute to literatures on immigrant assimilation, refugee migration, and the Age of Mass Migration.
Those Who Stayed: Selection and Cultural Change during the Age of Mass Migration
Anne Sofie Beck Knudsen
Harvard Working Paper, November 2019
Abstract:
This paper studies the cultural causes and consequences of mass emigration from Scandinavia in the 19th century. I test the hypothesis that people with individualistic traits were more likely to emigrate, because they faced lower costs of leaving established social networks behind. Data from population censuses and passenger lists confirm this hypothesis. Children who grew up in households with nonconformist naming practices, nuclear family structures, and weak ties to parents’ birthplaces were on average more likely to emigrate later in life. Selection was weaker under circumstances that reduced the social costs of emigration. This was the case with larger migration networks abroad, and in situations where people emigrated collectively. Based on these findings, I expect emigration to generate cultural change towards reduced individualism in migrant-sending locations, through a combination of initial compositional effects and intergenerational cultural transmission. This is confirmed in a cross-district setting with measures of actual cultural change over the medium and long run.
A Pathway to Homeownership? Evidence from the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
Jamie Sharpe
Contemporary Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
The impact of legal status on economic outcomes has been well documented in the literature with most research focused on labor market outcomes such as wages and occupational mobility. In this paper, I utilize the exogenous variation created the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 to estimate the effect of amnesty polices on homeownership among undocumented immigrants. Using a regression discontinuity framework, the results suggest that the IRCA increased homeownership rates of eligible immigrants by around 4 percentage points relative to ineligible immigrants. Moreover, an extension to the main analysis suggests that immigrants ineligible for the IRCA adjusted their household formation by increasing the rates of coresidency.
Negativity Bias: The Impact of Framing of Immigration on Welfare State Support in Germany, Sweden and the UK
Sabina Avdagicm & Lee Savage
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does the framing of immigration influence support for the welfare state? Drawing on research from psychology, specifically the notion of negativity bias and the sequencing of negative and positive information, this article argues that negative immigration frames undermine welfare support, while positive frames have little or no effect. Individuals take less notice of positive frames, and the effect of such frames is further undermined by the previous exposure to negative frames, which tend to stick longer in people's minds. The findings, based on survey experiments on over 9,000 individuals in Germany, Sweden and the UK, show that negative framing of immigration has a strong and pervasive effect on support for welfare. The article also finds some evidence that this effect is further amplified for people who hold anti-immigrant and anti-welfare attitudes or feel economically insecure. The effect of positive framing is considerably weaker and does not strengthen welfare support in any of the three countries.
Social Distance Reexamined: European Ancestry Groups in the Early Twentieth‐Century United States
Robert Boyd
Sociological Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
Emory Bogardus' 1926 social distance survey revealed, not surprisingly, that native‐born Americans tended to view Southern, Central, and Eastern (SCE) Europeans as far less desirable than Northern and Western (NW) Europeans for most social relationships. This well‐known finding has been attributed to both racial/ethnic prejudice and social class prejudice. The present study investigates the relative contributions of these two forms of prejudice to the total prejudice against SCE Europeans, testing the prediction that social distance attitudes toward European groups in Bogardus' pioneering survey were significantly influenced by group differences in socioeconomic status (SES), net of the NW‐SCE European distinction. The prediction is supported in analyses that consider survey respondents' uniquely intense desires for social distance from those SCE Europeans that were visible because of their relatively high SES, notably, Russian‐ancestry Jews. The study concludes that social class prejudice substantially affected divisions among European ancestry groups in early twentieth‐century America.