Full Citation
Title: Who Competes with Whom? Using Occupation Characteristics to Estimate the Impact of Immigration on Native Wages
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2019
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: Prior studies have examined the impact of immigration on native-born wages. These studies have relied upon education-experience groups to define labor markets and identify the wage elasticity of supply of immigrants. However, evidence suggests that immigrants’ educational attainment is treated differently in the labor market and constructing labor markets based upon this characteristic leads to potentially biased conclusions. We utilize O*NET occupational characteristics to form a different set of labor markets. Our analysis finds higher partial equilibrium effects on native born wages than prior work, as expected. These larger effects, however, are shown to be concentrated on the least skilled natives. Estimates of the total wage effect along the distribution of occupational skills confirm that the negative wage effect is concentrated on native workers in the bottom tail of the distribution. Natives in the upper tail of the distribution experience wage gains as a result of immigration.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Bollinger, Christopher; Sharpe, James
Publisher: University of Kentucky
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration
Countries: United States