Out of place
Did the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act Reduce the State's Unauthorized Immigrant Population?
Sarah Bohn, Magnus Lofstrom & Steven Raphael
Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We test for an effect of Arizona's 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA) on the proportion of the state population characterized as non-citizen Hispanic. We use the synthetic control method to select a group of states against which the population trends of Arizona can be compared. We document a notable and statistically significant reduction in the proportion of the Hispanic noncitizen population in Arizona. The decline observed matches the timing of LAWA's implementation, deviates from the time series for the synthetic control group, and stands out relative to the distribution of placebo estimates for other states in the nation.
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Native Competition and Low-Skilled Immigrant Inflows
Brian Cadena
Journal of Human Resources, Fall 2013, Pages 910-944
Abstract:
This paper demonstrates that immigration decisions depend on local labor market conditions by documenting the change in low-skilled immigrant inflows in response to supply increases among the US-born. Using prereform welfare participation rates as an instrument for changes in native labor supply, I find that immigrants competing with native entrants systematically prefer cities with smaller supply shocks. The extent of the response is substantial: for each native woman working due to reform, 0.5 fewer female immigrants enter the local labor force. These results provide direct evidence that international migration flows tend to equilibrate returns across US local labor markets.
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Openness and Income: The Roles of Trade and Migration
Francesc Ortega & Giovanni Peri
Journal of International Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper explores the relationship between openness to trade, immigration, and income per person across countries. To address endogeneity concerns we extend the instrumental-variables strategy introduced by Frankel and Romer (1999). We build predictors of openness to immigration and to trade for each country by using information on bilateral geographical and cultural distance (while controlling for country size). Since geography may affect income through other channels, we also control for climate, disease environment, natural resources, and colonial origins. Most importantly, we also account for the roles of institutions and early development. Our instrumental-variables estimates provide evidence of a robust, positive effect of openness to immigration on long-run income per capita. In contrast, we are unable to establish an effect of trade openness on income. We also show that the effect of migration operates through an increase in total factor productivity, which appears to reflect increased diversity in productive skills and, to some extent, a higher rate of innovation.
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Stacie Carr & Marta Tienda
Population Research and Policy Review, December 2013, Pages 825-849
Abstract:
We use the Immigrants Admitted to the United States (microdata) supplemented with special tabulations from the Department of Homeland Security to examine how family reunification impacts the age composition of new immigrant cohorts since 1980. We develop a family migration multiplier measure for the period 1981–2009 that improves on prior studies by including immigrants granted legal status under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act and relaxing unrealistic assumptions required by synthetic cohort measures. Results show that every 100 initiating immigrants admitted between 1981 and 1985 sponsored an average of 260 family members; the comparable figure for initiating immigrants for the 1996–2000 cohort is 345 family members. Furthermore, the number of family migrants ages 50 and over rose from 44 to 74 per 100 initiating migrants. The discussion considers the health and welfare implications of late-age immigration in a climate of growing fiscal restraint and an aging native population.
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Michael Parkin & Frances Zlotnick
Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, February 2014, Pages 48-63
Abstract:
This study explores how the language minority provisions in the Voting Rights Act (VRA) affect Latino voter registration. We are particularly interested in how these provisions affect Latino citizens with varying levels of English language proficiency. Using data from the 2006 National Latino Survey, we find that Latino citizens with limited English skills register to vote at about the same rate whether or not they live in a county mandated by the VRA to provide registration and voting materials in Spanish. However, for Latinos who speak English “very well,” we find that access to these materials is associated with increased registration rates, all else equal. We interpret these findings to suggest that the positive effects of VRA coverage on Latino registration are due to a symbolic “welcoming” effect, rather than substantial reductions in administrative barriers to registration.
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Todd Lucas et al.
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, forthcoming
Abstract:
Host-nation employers’ political affiliation and national identity both may be relevant to seeing immigrant job-seekers as employable. However, whether national identity alters differences in links between political affiliation and evaluations of immigrants is not well articulated, and this includes a potential for national identity to either bolster or lessen harshness toward immigrant job-seekers. Moreover, research has yet to identify psychological mechanisms that could transmit a conjoint effect of political affiliation and national identity. In this study, we examined the capacity of national identity to accentuate links between political affiliation and perceived employability of immigrants. Liberal and conservative employment experts (human resource professionals and managers) were experimentally primed to elicit either a personal or national (U.S.) identity, and measures of attitudes toward immigrant job-seekers were collected. Results suggested a polarizing effect of national identity: conservative employers viewed immigrants as less employable when primed with national identity, while liberal employers rated immigrants as more employable. Among conservatives, priming national identity also resulted in greater collective self-esteem – feelings of self-worth derived from group membership. Moreover, increases in collective self-esteem mediated the link between primed national identity and less perceived employability among conservatives. Overall, this research contributes to emerging literature by suggesting that the capacity of national identity to either bolster or lessen harshness toward immigrants may depend on political affiliation. In addition, we suggest that transient changes in collective self-esteem can result from priming national identity, and that such changes may transmit links between national identity and evaluations of immigrants among conservatives.
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Ricochet: How Elite Discourse Politicizes Racial and Ethnic Identities
Efrén Pérez
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Political elites often discuss racial/ethnic outgroups in a critical light. I claim this discourse raises the salience of group identity while impugning its worth, thus inducing differential political reactions among high and low identifying group members. Specifically, high identifiers will engage in political efforts that restore their identity’s positive value by displaying ingroup favoritism and challenging the source of their group’s devaluation. In contrast, low identifiers will actively decline political opportunities to bolster their group’s devalued status. Using a national survey experiment, I randomly assigned eligible but unregistered Latino voters to a control group without elite discourse; a non-devaluing condition with elite discourse focused on illegal immigration; or, a devaluing condition with elite discourse focused on illegal immigration and critical of illegal immigrants. High identifying Latinos in the devaluing condition expressed greater pro-Latino political attitudes and a stronger intention to register and vote in a pending presidential election. This dynamic was absent in the other conditions and unrelated to Latinos’ partisan identity. These results suggest an identity-to-politics link is robustly forged among high identifying group members when they sense a devaluation of their group.
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Immigration policy and counterterrorism
Subhayu Bandyopadhyay & Todd Sandler
Journal of Public Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
In a developing country, terrorists recruit and allocate their capital, skilled labor, and unskilled labor between domestic and foreign targets. Domestic targets require less skilled labor than foreign targets. Under various strategic scenarios, we show how countermeasures against the different terrorist inputs alter the amount and mix of targets, as well as how skilled and unskilled immigration quotas by a targeted foreign country affect this mix of attacks. We find that increases in skilled labor quotas generally reduce terrorist attacks in the foreign country, especially when the terrorists reside in a skill-scarce country. A number of different strategic scenarios, including leader-follower, are investigated.
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The Impact of Immigration Enforcement on the U.S. Farming Sector
Genti Kostandini, Elton Mykerezi & Cesar Escalante
American Journal of Agricultural Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the effects of local immigration enforcement efforts on U.S. agriculture in dozens of U.S. counties from 2002–2010 by using variations in the timing of adoption of 287(g) programs, which permit local police to enforce immigration law. Difference-in-differences models using microdata from the American Community Survey (2005–2010 waves) and county tabulations from the Census of Agriculture (1997, 2002, and 2007) yield robust evidence that county enforcement efforts have reduced immigrant presence in adopting jurisdictions. We also find evidence that wages of farm workers, patterns of farm labor use, output choices, and farm profitability may have been affected in a manner consistent with farm labor shortages.
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Group Size versus Change? Assessing Americans’ Perception of Local Immigration
Benjamin Newman & Yamil Velez
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Leading opinion research on immigration has begun to move from size-based to change-based measures of citizens’ ethnic context. This shift is based on the theoretical assumption that over-time growth in immigrant populations is more likely to capture citizens’ attention than their current size. At present, there is no empirical evidence supporting this assumption. This article demonstrates that while the size of local immigrant populations exerts virtually no effect on perceived immigration, over-time growth strongly influences citizens’ perceptions of immigration into their community. In addition, our analyses illuminate the differential contribution of growth in local Hispanic and Asian populations to perceived immigration.
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Indian Entrepreneurial Success in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom
Robert Fairlie et al.
University of California Working Paper, December 2013
Abstract:
Indian immigrants in the United States and other wealthy countries are successful in entrepreneurship. Using Census data from the three largest developed countries receiving Indian immigrants in the world -- the United States, United Kingdom and Canada -- we examine the performance of Indian entrepreneurs and explanations for their success. We find that business income of Indian entrepreneurs in the United States is substantially higher than the national average and is higher than any other immigrant group. Approximately half of the average difference in income between Indian entrepreneurs and the national average is explained by their high levels of education while industry differences explain an additional 10 percent. In Canada, Indian entrepreneurs have average earnings slightly below the national average but they are more likely to hire employees, as are their counterparts in the United States and United Kingdom. The Indian educational advantage is smaller in Canada and the United Kingdom contributing less to their entrepreneurial success.
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The impact of unionization and other factors on undocumented immigrant settlement patterns in the US
Richard Cebula, Maggie Foley & Robert Boylan
Applied Economics Letters, Winter 2014, Pages 272-275
Abstract:
In this study, we seek to add to the literature on undocumented immigrants by (1) identifying key determinants of the settlement patterns of undocumented immigrants and (2) testing a new hypothesis, what is referred to here as the ‘union-aversion hypothesis’. This hypothesis is elaborated upon in Section II of this study, but ultimately it argues that undocumented workers prefer to settle in states where the percentage of the labour force that is unionized is lower. Our findings suggest that the state-level settlement pattern of undocumented immigrants in the US is an increasing function of a state’s median family income level, the mean January temperature in a state and the relative size of the documented Hispanic population in the state, while being a decreasing function of the overall cost of living in the state. In addition, strong empirical support for the union-aversion hypothesis is obtained, namely the settlement pattern of undocumented immigrants is a decreasing function of the percentage of a state’s labour force that is unionized.
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Easing the Heavy Hand: Humanitarian Concern, Empathy, and Opinion on Immigration
Benjamin Newman et al.
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The bulk of the public opinion research on immigration identifies the factors leading to opposition to immigration. In contrast, we focus on a previously unexplored factor yielding support for immigration: humanitarianism. Relying upon secondary analysis of national public opinion survey data and an original survey experiment, we demonstrate that humanitarian concern significantly decreases support for restrictive immigration policy. Results from our survey experiment demonstrate that in an information environment evoking both threat and countervailing humanitarian concern regarding immigration, the latter can and does override the former. Last, our results point to the importance of individual differences in empathy in moderating the effects of both threat and humanitarian inducements.
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Corporate Lobbying and Immigration Policies in Canada
Ludovic Rheault
Canadian Journal of Political Science, September 2013, Pages 691-722
Abstract:
This study examines the enduring claim that firms exert influence on immigration policies, prompting governments to open the doors to foreign labour. Although intuitively appealing, this claim has received little empirical support so far, the actual channels of influence from special interests to policy makers being usually opaque to public scrutiny. To address this problem, I rely upon the vector autoregression methodology and make use of fine-grained quarterly data on lobbying, skills-based immigration and temporary workers in Canada, between 1996 and 2011. A key result is the positive and robust response of temporary worker inflows to the intensity of corporate lobbying, even after accounting for labour market conditions. In contrast, there is no conclusive evidence that lobbyists carry weight when it comes to permanent migrants.
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Are They Acculturating? Europe's Immigrants and Gender Egalitarianism
Antje Röder & Peter Mühlau
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
A substantial share of Europe's population consists of immigrants and the children of immigrants. Using European Social Survey data, this study examines whether the gender-egalitarian values of immigrants are shaped by the gender relations in their origin country and whether they adapt their values to the standards of their residence country. The analyses show that immigrants originating from countries with very inegalitarian gender relations support gender equality less than members of mainstream society. However, immigrants adapt their gender ideology to the standards of their residence country, and the origin context loses force over time. Both acculturation within the first generation and acculturation across the generations play a role; but women tend to “assimilate” within the first generation and more thoroughly than men.
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Closing the Social Class Achievement Gap for First-Generation Students in Undergraduate Biology
Judith Harackiewicz et al.
Journal of Educational Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many students start college intending to pursue a career in the biosciences, but too many abandon this goal because they struggle in introductory biology. Interventions have been developed to close achievement gaps for underrepresented minority students and women, but no prior research has attempted to close the gap for 1st-generation students, a population that accounts for nearly a 5th of college students. We report a values affirmation intervention conducted with 798 U.S. students (154 first-generation) in an introductory biology course for majors. For 1st-generation students, values affirmation significantly improved final course grades and retention in the 2nd course in the biology sequence, as well as overall grade point average for the semester. This brief intervention narrowed the achievement gap between 1st-generation and continuing-generation students for course grades by 50% and increased retention in a critical gateway course by 20%. Our results suggest that educators can expand the pipeline for 1st-generation students to continue studying in the biosciences with psychological interventions.
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Are immigrants really attracted to the welfare state? Evidence from OECD countries
Aaron Jackson, David Ortmeyer & Michael Quinn
International Economics and Economic Policy, December 2013, Pages 491-519
Abstract:
This paper examines the impact of fiscal policies on both the size and educational levels of immigrants in destination countries. We find that whether or not a country’s policies are attracting highly educated immigrants goes beyond the issue of the “welfare state”. Immigrants are making important distinctions between the different benefits provided by a receiving country’s government. Health and education spending are found to have a positive impact on the education levels of immigrants while the reverse is true for unemployment and retirement benefits. Welfare programs are found to be insignificant once other government programs/taxes and other factors are taken into account. These results imply that countries should be less concerned about whether they are a “big government” with regards to attracting immigrants, and more concerned with what types of benefits they offer.
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Relative deprivation and migration preferences
Walter Hyll & Lutz Schneider
Economics Letters, February 2014, Pages 334–337
Abstract:
In this paper, we overcome the existing shortages with respect to the assignment of individuals to reference groups and are the first to show that individual aversion to relative deprivation plays a decisive role in shaping migration preferences.
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Immigrant Assimilation, Canada 1971–2006: Has the Tide Turned?
Michele Campolieti et al.
Journal of Labor Research, December 2013, Pages 455-475
Abstract:
Based on the micro files of the Canadian Census we document an increasing earnings penalty for cohorts of immigrants arriving after the late-1970s, especially for the most recent cohort. We also find much quicker assimilation rates for these cohorts, especially for the most recent cohort. Since the late-1970s, the increasing earnings penalty dominated their more rapid assimilation, so that immigrants exhibited ever-deteriorating patterns of integration into the Canadian labour market. For the most recent cohort (2002–2006), this reversed itself, suggesting that the tide may have turned. We find this for both men and women. Our findings are robust across alternative regression specifications, as well as a sample that only considers full-time and full-year workers.
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The Migrant Wage Premium in Professional Football: A Superstar Effect?
Alex Bryson, Giambattista Rossi & Rob Simmons
Kyklos, February 2014, Pages 12–28
Abstract:
Using panel data on professional footballers and their teams over a seven year period we find a substantial wage premium for migrants which persists within teams and is only partially accounted for by players' on-field labour productivity. We show that the differential partly reflects the superstar status of migrant workers. This superstar effect is apparent in migrant effects on team performance and crowd attendance.
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Social Exclusion and Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation in European Economies
Roberto Dell'Anno & Adalgiso Amendola
Review of Income and Wealth, forthcoming
Abstract:
The aims of this article are to propose an overall index of social exclusion and to analyze its relationship with economic growth in European countries. We approach social exclusion as a multidimensional phenomenon by a three-mode principal components analysis (Tucker3 model). This method is applied to estimate an indicator of social exclusion for 28 European countries between 1995 and 2010. The empirical evidence shows that in the short run: (1) Granger causality runs one way from social exclusion to economic growth and not the other way; (2) countries with a higher level of social exclusion have higher growth rates of real GDP per capita; and (3) social exclusion has a larger effect than income inequality on economic growth. The policy implication of our analysis is that social inclusion is not a source of economic growth in the short term.
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Generational patterns in Mexican Americans' academic performance in an unwelcoming political context
Danyel Moosmann, Mark Roosa & George Knight
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research has shown that immigrant students often do better academically than their U.S.-born peers from the same ethnic group, but it is unclear whether this pattern holds for Mexican Americans. We examined the academic performance of four generations of Mexican American students from 5th to 10th grade looking for generation differences and explanations for them. Using data from 749 families, we tested a model with 5th-grade variables that differed by generation as potential mediators linking student generation to 10th-grade academic performance. Results showed that immigrants were academically behind at 5th grade but caught up by 7th. Only economic hardship mediated the long term relation between student generation and 10th-grade academic performance; maternal educational expectations and child language hassles, English usage, discrimination, and mainstream values helped explained the early academic deficit of immigrant children. The results identified potential targets for interventions to improve Mexican American students' academic performance.