Uninvited
Reexamining the Effect of Racial Propositions on Latinos' Partisanship in California
Iris Hui & David Sears
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many seasoned politicians and scholars have attributed the loss in support for the Republican Party in California to its push for three racially divisive propositions in the mid- 1990s, especially the anti-immigrant Proposition 187. Their costs are said to involve the partisan realignment of Latinos against the Republicans. Using three separate data sources, we find no evidence of a "tipping point" or abrupt realignment among Latino registered voters who made up the electorate. Latinos' partisanship within California did not change significantly; it did not change much when compared to nearby states; nor did voter registration change materially. The loss of support for Republicans occurred primarily among unregistered Latino voters whom historically had never been strong supporters. Our findings question the conventional wisdom about the powerful political effects of the propositions, and reaffirm the long standing conclusion in the literature that realignment due to a "critical election" is rare.
Migrants and the Making of America: The Short- and Long-Run Effects of Immigration During the Age of Mass Migration
Sandra Sequeira, Nathan Nunn & Nancy Qian
NBER Working Paper, March 2017
Abstract:
We study the effects of European immigration to the United States during the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1920) on economic prosperity today. We exploit variation in the extent of immigration across counties arising from the interaction of fluctuations in aggregate immigrant flows and the gradual expansion of the railway network across the United States. We find that locations with more historical immigration today have higher incomes, less poverty, less unemployment, higher rates of urbanization, and greater educational attainment. The long-run effects appear to arise from the persistence of sizeable short-run benefits, including greater industrialization, increased agricultural productivity, and more innovation.
Immigration, Skill Heterogeneity, and Qualification Mismatch
Xiangbo Liu, Theodore Palivos & Xiaomeng Zhang
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate the effects of U.S. immigration in a comprehensive search and matching framework that allows for skill heterogeneity, imperfect substitutability between skilled and unskilled inputs, different search cost between natives and immigrants, cross-skill matching, and imperfect transferability of foreign human capital. When we simulate the effects of the U.S. immigration that took place between the years 2000 and 2009, we find that both skilled and unskilled natives, as well as skilled and unskilled immigrants, gain in terms of income and employment. We also investigate the effects of an improvement in the transferability of human capital across borders and find that, although it has some redistributive effects, overall it benefits both immigrants and natives.
Re-examining the relationship between Latino immigration and racial/ethnic violence
Michael Light
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Whether immigration increases crime has long been a source of political debate and scholarly interest. Despite widespread public opinion to the contrary, the weight of evidence suggests the most recent wave of U.S. immigration has not increased crime, and may have actually helped reduce criminal violence. However, with recent shifts in immigrant settlement patterns away from traditional receiving destinations, a series of contemporary studies suggests a more complicated immigration-crime relationship, whereby Latino immigration is said to increase violence in newer immigrant destinations (but not in established destinations) and has varied effects for different racial/ethnic groups. With few exceptions, these more recent studies rely on cross-sectional analyses, thus limiting their ability to examine the longitudinal nexus between Latino immigration and violent crime. This study brings to bear the first longitudinal data set to test the relationship between immigration and racial/ethnic homicide in U.S. metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2010. Results from bivariate longitudinal associations and multivariate fixed effects models are contrary to recent findings - Latino immigration is generally associated with decreases in homicide victimization for whites, blacks, and Hispanics in both established and non-established immigrant destinations, though these associations are not significant in all cases.
Redistribution and the New Fiscal Sociology: Race and the Progressivity of State and Local Taxes
Rourke O'Brien
American Journal of Sociology, January 2017, Pages 1015-1049
Abstract:
States redistribute wealth through two mechanisms: spending and taxation. Yet studies of the social determinants of redistribution typically focus exclusively on government spending. This article explores how one determinant of social spending - racial composition - influences preferences for, and the structure of, tax systems. First, analyses of state and local tax burden data indicate that an increasing proportion of Latinos within states is associated with more regressive tax systems. Second, evidence from a nationally representative survey experiment suggests that individual preferences for taxation may be influenced by changes in the racial composition of communities. Finally, analyses reveal that in-group solidarity is a key mechanism through which racial threat shapes preferences for taxation. In demonstrating a relationship between racial change, tax preferences, and tax structures, this article contributes to our understanding of the determinants of redistribution as well as the broader project of the new fiscal sociology.
The Earnings of Undocumented Immigrants
George Borjas
NBER Working Paper, March 2017
Abstract:
Over 11 million undocumented persons reside in the United States, and there has been a heated debate over the impact of legislative or executive efforts to regularize the status of this population. This paper examines the determinants of earnings for undocumented workers. Using newly developed methods that impute undocumented status for foreign-born persons sampled in microdata surveys, the study documents a number of findings. First, the age-earnings profile of undocumented workers lies far below that of legal immigrants and of native workers, and is almost perfectly flat during the prime working years. Second, the unadjusted gap in the log hourly wage between undocumented workers and natives is very large (around 40 percent), but half of this gap disappears once the calculation adjusts for differences in observable socioeconomic characteristics, particularly educational attainment. Finally, the adjusted wage of undocumented workers rose rapidly in the past decade. As a result, there was a large decline in the wage penalty associated with undocumented status. The relatively small magnitude of the current wage penalty suggests that a regularization program may only have a modest impact on the wage of undocumented workers.
The economic impact of Brexit-induced reductions in migration
Jonathan Portes & Giuseppe Forte
Oxford Review of Economic Policy, March 2017, Pages S31-S44
Abstract:
We analyse the determinants of migration flows to the UK, and the impact of restrictions on free movement post-Brexit, in both the short and long term. We then provide plausible, empirically based estimates of the likely impacts on growth and wages using relationships from the existing empirical literature. We find that Brexit-induced reductions in migration are likely to have a significant negative impact on UK GDP per capita (and GDP), with marginal positive impacts on wages in the low-skill service sector.
The Gravity of High-Skilled Migration Policies
Mathias Czaika & Christopher Parsons
Demography, April 2017, Pages 603-630
Abstract:
Combining unique, annual, bilateral data on labor flows of highly skilled immigrants for 10 OECD destinations between 2000 and 2012, with new databases comprising both unilateral and bilateral policy instruments, we present the first judicious cross-country assessment of policies aimed to attract and select high-skilled workers. Points-based systems are much more effective in attracting and selecting high-skilled migrants than requiring a job offer, labor market tests, and shortage lists. Offers of permanent residency, while attracting the highly skilled, overall reduce the human capital content of labor flows because they prove more attractive to non-high-skilled workers. Bilateral recognition of diploma and social security agreements foster greater flows of high-skilled workers and improve the skill selectivity of immigrant flows. Conversely, double taxation agreements deter high-skilled migrants, although they do not alter overall skill selectivity. Our results are robust to a variety of empirical specifications that account for destination-specific amenities, multilateral resistance to migration, and the endogeneity of immigration policies.
Gender Empowerment and Educational Attainment of US Immigrants and Their Home-Country Counterparts
Yunsun Huh
Feminist Economics, Spring 2017, Pages 120-145
Abstract:
This paper examines the educational self-selection of immigrants to the United States across forty-two countries of origin and analyzes determinants of selectivity, including home-country gender status (as measured by the United Nations' Gender Empowerment Measure [GEM]). Measuring educational self-selection, the study uses data from the 2006 American Community Survey and the 2000 and 2014 Barro-Lee Educational Attainment Measure to construct the Net Difference Index between immigrants and nonmigrants. It compares the educational attainment difference between immigrants and nonmigrants who remain in the home country and demonstrates that immigrants to the US are more educated than their home-country counterparts across all immigrant groups (positive selection). Regression results further indicate that higher gender inequality in the home country influences more highly educated women to migrate. The paper also confirms that higher migration costs and lower income inequality in the home country influence more highly educated individuals to migrate.
Tolerance Toward Immigrants as a Dimension of Cosmopolitanism: Explaining Attitudes Toward Immigrants in Houston
Cristian Paredes
Sociological Spectrum, forthcoming
Abstract:
Tolerance toward immigrants can be explained as the development of dispositions toward the acceptance of foreigners as locals influenced by the city's multicultural contexts. Accordingly, tolerance toward immigrants represents a dimension of cosmopolitanism in metropolitan areas of receiving societies. In this study, I examine whether the proportion of immigrants in communities is directly associated with tolerance toward immigrants and whether there are significant differences in attitudes toward immigrants by occupation and educational attainment in the metropolitan research setting of Houston, Texas. Using data from the Houston Area Survey, I find that the percentage of foreign born in census tracts is directly associated with tolerance, that white-collar workers are not more tolerant than non-white-collar workers, and that the effect of education on tolerance toward immigrants is not always positive. I conclude that, in Houston, tolerance toward immigrants represents a dimension of cosmopolitanism, and cosmopolitanism is not well founded on socioeconomic status.
Local Immigration Enforcement and Local Economies
Sarah Bohn & Robert Santillano
Industrial Relations, April 2017, Pages 236-262
Abstract:
We examine the impacts of a locally enforced immigration program - 287(g) - on private employer reports to the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. Using contiguous-county pairs to account for time-varying local economic shocks, we identify impacts on immigrant-intensive industries that are robust to prepolicy time trends, implementation timing, and the exclusion of pairs with large prepolicy differences. Reported employment was 4 percent higher in manufacturing, but 7-10 percent lower in administrative services. These results are consistent with adverse labor-supply shocks, and, to a lesser extent, a decline in labor demand for locally produced goods and services.
Why Does the Health of Mexican Immigrants Deteriorate? New Evidence from Linked Birth Records
Osea Giuntella
Journal of Health Economics, July 2017, Pages 1-16
Abstract:
This study uses a unique dataset linking the birth records of two generations of children born in California and Florida (1970-2009) to analyze the mechanisms behind the generational decline observed in birth outcomes of children of Mexican origin. Calibrating a simple model of intergenerational transmission of birth weight, I show that modest positive selection on health at the time of migration can account for the initial advantage in birth outcomes of second-generation Mexicans. Moreover, accounting for the socioeconomic differences between second-generation Mexicans and white natives and the observed intergenerational correlation in birth weight, the model predicts a greater deterioration than that observed in the data. Using a subset of siblings and holding constant grandmother quasi-fixed effects, I show that the persistence of healthier behaviors among second-generation Mexican mothers can explain more than half of the difference between the model prediction and the observed birth outcomes of third-generation Mexicans.
Explaining the Immigrant Health Advantage: Self-selection and Protection in Health-Related Factors Among Five Major National-Origin Immigrant Groups in the United States
Fernando Riosmena, Randall Kuhn & Warren Jochem
Demography, February 2017, Pages 175-200
Abstract:
Despite being newcomers, immigrants often exhibit better health relative to native-born populations in industrialized societies. We extend prior efforts to identify whether self-selection and/or protection explain this advantage. We examine migrant height and smoking levels just prior to immigration to test for self-selection; and we analyze smoking behavior since immigration, controlling for self-selection, to assess protection. We study individuals aged 20-49 from five major national origins: India, China, the Philippines, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. To assess self-selection, we compare migrants, interviewed in the National Health and Interview Surveys (NHIS), with nonmigrant peers in sending nations, interviewed in the World Health Surveys. To test for protection, we contrast migrants' changes in smoking since immigration with two counterfactuals: (1) rates that immigrants would have exhibited had they adopted the behavior of U.S.-born non-Hispanic whites in the NHIS (full "assimilation"); and (2) rates that migrants would have had if they had adopted the rates of nonmigrants in sending countries (no-migration scenario). We find statistically significant and substantial self-selection, particularly among men from both higher-skilled (Indians and Filipinos in height, Chinese in smoking) and lower-skilled (Mexican) undocumented pools. We also find significant and substantial protection in smoking among immigrant groups with stronger relative social capital (Mexicans and Dominicans).
Stepping in the shoes of leaders of populist right-wing parties: Promoting anti-immigrant views in times of economic prosperity
Jolanda Jetten, Rachel Ryan & Frank Mols
Social Psychology, January/February 2017, Pages 40-46
Abstract:
What narrative is deemed most compelling to justify anti-immigrant sentiments when a country's economy is not a cause for concern? We predicted that flourishing economies constrain the viability of realistic threat arguments. We found support for this prediction in an experiment in which participants were asked to take on the role of speechwriter for a leader with an anti-immigrant message (N = 75). As predicted, a greater percentage of realistic threat arguments and fewer symbolic threat arguments were generated in a condition in which the economy was expected to decline than when it was expected to grow or a baseline condition. Perhaps more interesting, in the economic growth condition, the percentage realistic entitlements and symbolic threat arguments generated were higher than when the economy was declining. We conclude that threat narratives to provide a legitimizing discourse for anti-immigrant sentiments are tailored to the economic context.
The More the Merrier? Immigrant Share and Entrepreneurial Activities
Chengguang Li et al.
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the relationship between immigrant share and entrepreneurial activities in a country. Building on knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE), we hypothesize that immigrant share positively relates to the creation, growth, and export activities of new firms through knowledge spillover between immigrant and native communities. We further suggest that favorable attitudes of natives toward immigrants positively moderate this relationship. Using data for 32 countries from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, we find support for the hypothesized direct relationships and for the moderating influence of a nation's attitude toward immigrants. Our study has implications for KSTE and research on entrepreneurship and immigration.