A theory of permissible illegal immigration

In many countries laws are not enforced against visibly present illegal immigrants. The visibly present illegal immigrants also tend to be concentrated in particular sectors. We explain such permissible illegal immigration in an endogenous-policy model where selective sector-specific illegality transforms illegal immigrants from non-sectorally specialized to sector-specific factors of production. Under initial conditions where no immigrants are present, the median voter opposes immigration. When, however, a population of illegal immigrants has accumulated, ongoing illegal immigration becomes an endogenous equilibrium policy, at the same time that a majority of voters opposes legal immigration and opposes amnesty that would legalize the immigrants' presence. We also establish a basis for domestic voters preferring that illegal immigrants be employed in service rather than traded-goods sectors.     

Immigration as industrial strategy in American meatpacking

Abstract

This paper examines the connections linking recent changes in Latino migration, the American meatpacking industry, and American immigration policy. As the meatpacking industry has vertically integrated and shifted to rural non-union areas throughout the South, it has grown increasingly dependent on short-term low-skilled employees. This process can be understood as the industrialization of meatpacking, where profitability depends on continuous high-throughput production. To succeed, the industrialization of meatpacking requires a large pool of easily replaceable labor that has no control over the pace work on of the shop floor. At the same time, as immigrants have been drawn to these new company towns, American immigration policy has turned increasingly towards border enforcement. We argue that the presence of illegal immigrants within the factories reduces the bargaining power of shop workers and increases employer control. Most studies of immigration have focused on the supply of migrant labor, the immigrants attracted to higher paying jobs. We argue that valuable insight is gained by looking at the manufacturers' demand for cheap labor and the implementation of an industrial strategy that requires it.     

Globalization and electoral outcomes: Evidence from Italy

We study whether and to what extent the electoral dynamics in Italy over the 1994–2008 period can be explained by the development of economic factors associated with globalization. To measure the level of exposure to globalization for local labor markets, our main unit of analysis, we use the intensity of import competition from China and the presence of immigrants. Looking at parties’ political positions and employing an estimation strategy that accounts for endogeneity and time‐invariant unobserved effects across local labor markets, we find that both immigration intensity and exposure to import competition from China have contributed positively to the electoral outcomes of far‐right parties, whereas only immigration intensity has increased the vote shares of right‐wing and traditionalist/authoritarian/nationalist parties. Some evidence, albeit not robust, shows that immigration may have also had a positive impact on far‐left parties, thus possibly further contributing toward political polarization. Moreover, electoral turnout has responded negatively to an increased presence of migrants. While the above effects seem to work through the mediation of labor markets, our results, especially those related to immigration, suggest that other mechanisms at the level of local communities are also at play.     

Illegal immigration in the presence of labor unions

"This paper develops a general equilibrium framework of a two-sector economy which incorporates illegal immigration in the presence of labor unions. It demonstrates that stricter enforcement of immigration laws, by reducing the demand for or supply of illegal aliens, benefits all legal workers in the economy. The model is used to evaluate the impact of these policy changes on national income. Results indicate that national income does not necessarily fall when immigration controls are tightened. The existence of a union mitigates the negative welfare impact of a reduction in the number of illegal immigrants."     

移民积分制的全球实践及其启示

移民积分制是一种挑选移民主要是高技能人才的重要政策工具,在一些具有移民传统的发达国家和地区广泛使用,并受到越来越多的国家关注。目前,实施移民积分制的国家,一类为实施积分制,另一类为实施类积分制,这两类的典型国家分别为加拿大和德国。通过概述加拿大积分制和德国类积分制的实践,深入分析了移民积分制的实施前提、主要特征,剖析了实施移民积分制的优点和不足,继而对实施和调整移民积分制的整体框架进行了反思与归纳。我国当前仍处在经济社会快速发展的阶段,迫切需要各类科技人才,必须加快移民积分制的实施,但在实施过程中,应该注意对实施对象的范围做出严格限定,所制定的积分制要有利于满足高层次科技创新创业人才以多种方式来中国发展的需求,并可采取国家、省级两级积分体系。     

Immigration policy and the U.S. economy: an institutional perspective

The author examines some aspects of the current situation concerning immigration to the United States. He predicts that the 1990s will witness the largest flow of immigrants into the population and labor force of any decade in the country's history; furthermore, since there is no universally accepted right to immigrate, the adoption of migration policy is one area of economic policymaking that is not controlled by market forces. He also notes that while the country's need is for a highly skilled, motivated, and educated labor force, the majority of current immigrants have low skill levels and relatively little education. The need to develop and implement a migration policy that is in tune with the country's economic objectives is stressed. He concludes that "the resurrection of mass immigration from out of the nation's distant past was a political accident; its perpetuation in the 1990s is contrary to national interest. Immigration reform, therefore, needs to be [in] the forefront of the nation's economic policy agenda."     

Migration Policy in a Small Open Economy with a Dual Labor Market

The paper uses a two–sector efficiency–wage model to analyze the consequences of immigration for a small open economy with a dual labor market. Immigrants are characterized by an (exogenous) return probability. Legal regulations impose preferential hiring of natives or "old" immigrants. As a result, there is sectoral segregation between natives and immigrants, leading to discrimination of the type equal pay for equal work,but unequal "work." In the short run (with sector–specific capital), immigration has a positive first–order impact on natives' welfare if migration policy favors segregation through high return rates or restrictive hiring practices ("guest–worker system"). In the long run, its effect is only determined by factor intensities (2 ¥ 2 model). Finally, the improved integration of migrants yields efficiency gains and improves aggregate welfare of all residents.     

The impact of immigration on the human capital of natives

"Implications of the quantity (number) and quality (skill) of immigration on the destination economy are analyzed, including impacts on value added, wages, quasi rents, rates of return, and the skill distribution of the native labor force. Quantity-quality trade-offs are considered for both immigrant and native workers. Medium- and long-run labor-supply responses by natives to immigrant-induced changes in wage rates are shown to have second-order effects which subtantively affect the impacts of immigrants. The impact of immigration policy depends on the quality as well as quantity of immigrants, the time horizon, and the speed of factor market adjustment."     

Capital–skill complementarity and the immigration surplus

We build a neoclassical growth model with overlapping dynasties and capital–skill complementarities to evaluate changes in immigration policy. Calibrating the model using US data, we quantify the differential effects of skilled and unskilled immigration on factor returns and on the welfare of different sectors of the population. An influx of high-skilled immigrants lowers the wages of skilled workers, raises the wages of unskilled workers, and because of the relative complementarity between capital and skilled labor, substantially raises the rate of return to native-owned capital. By contrast, an influx of unskilled immigrants produces an opposite effect on wages, and has only a negligible effect on the return to capital. Because of capital–skill complementarity, an increase in the number of skilled immigrants generates an immigration surplus—the overall welfare benefit accruing to the native population—that is approximately ten times larger than the immigration surplus generated by an identical increase in the number of unskilled immigrants. This differential welfare effect is far higher than can be accounted for by the disparity between the productivities of each type of worker.     

The immigration surplus and the substitutability of immigrant and native labor: evidence from Spain

How immigration affects the labor market of the host country is a topic of major concern for many immigrant-receiving nations. Spain is no exception, as a consequence of the rapid increase in immigrant flows experienced over the past few decades. We assess the impact of immigration on Spanish natives’ incomes by estimating the net immigration surplus (IS) under the assumption of perfect and imperfect substitutabilities between immigrant and native labor of similar educational attainment. To address the imperfect substitutability between immigrant and native labor, we use information on the occupational distribution of immigrants and natives of similar educational attainment to learn about the equivalency of skilled immigrants to skilled and unskilled natives. The results show that the magnitude of the IS significantly rises with the degree of imperfect substitutability between immigrant and native labor.     

Immigration policy and employment assimilation in the United States

We examine the impact of immigration policy on the employment propensity and assimilation of immigrants using a pooled cross-section of the 1994–2004 Current Population Surveys (CPS). The results are generally consistent with positive immigrant employment assimilation. A Blinder–Oaxaca style decomposition shows that the foreign-born obtain more employment primarily through human capital acquisition and changes in labour market conditions rather than higher returns to observable skills, as sometimes seen in wage studies. In addition, our analysis suggests that immigration policies may influence both labour demand and supply incentives and are associated with structural shifts in the labour market.     

The dynamic impact of immigration on natives' labor market outcomes: Evidence from Israel

This paper studies the short and medium run impact of highly skilled immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel on natives' wages and employment. If immigrants are relatively good substitutes for native workers, the impact of immigration will be largest immediately upon the immigrants' arrival, and may become smaller as the labor market adjusts to the supply shock. Conversely, if immigrants upon arrival are poor substitutes for natives, the initial effect of immigration is small, and increases over time as immigrants acquire local labor market skills and compete with native workers. We empirically examine these alternative hypotheses using data from Israel between 1989 and 1999.We find that wages of both men and women are negatively correlated with the fraction of immigrants with little local experience in a labor market segment. A 10 percent increase in the share of immigrants lowers natives' wages in the short run by 1–3 percent, but this effect dissolves after 4–7 years. This result is robust to a variety of different segmentations of the labor market, to the inclusion of cohort effects, and to different dynamic structures in the residual term of the wage equation. On the other hand, we do not find any effect of immigration on employment, neither in the short nor in the medium run.     

ON THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF IMMIGRATION AND INCOME REDISTRIBUTION*

In this article, we analyze an economy in which agents vote over immigration policy and redistributive tax policy. We show that natives' preferences over immigration are influenced by the prospect that immigrants will be voting over future tax policy. We also show that changes in the degree of international capital mobility, the distribution of initial capital among natives, the wealth or poverty of the immigrant pool, and the future voting rights and entitlements of immigrants can have dramatic effects on equilibrium immigration and tax policies. Finally, we provide some empirical support for the model's predictions.     

Immigration and the Italian labour market: a contradiction

The role of immigration in the evolution of the labor force in Italy is analyzed. The author notes that not only is there a growing number of foreign immigrants, but return migration of natives to Italy is greater than Italian emigration. It is also noted that neither Italian migration policy nor the statistical system have evolved to cope with these new conditions. The high level of illegal immigration is also described, and the author concludes that such immigrants either find work in positions Italians no longer wish to fill, or in the black, or illegal, economy.     

Age at immigration and educational attainment of young immigrants

This paper investigates up to what immigration age the educational attainment of young immigrants in the Netherlands is similar to the educational attainment of second-generation immigrants. The borderline immigration age appears to depend on gender and country of origin.     

EFFECTS OF IMMIGRANTS ON THE 1980–1990 U.S. WAGE EXPERIENCE

This paper questions the claim that U.S. immigration should be reduced because the economy can no longer absorb immigrants as it has in the past. Analysis of male hourly wages shows that the effect of immigration on wages did not change between 1980 and 1990. Further, immigration had no negative effects on wages in 1980 or 1990. These results suggest that the capacity of the labor market to absorb immigrants has not been reduced. Additional analysis shows that, controlling for personal characteristics, the hourly wages of the average native and immigrant worker in areas of high and medium immigration relative to areas of low immigration increased between 1980 and 1990. However, Latino immigrants are affected negatively by immigration.     

America's post-war immigration policy

This article provides a historical perspective on immigration policy in the US after World War II and assesses the present situation. US immigration and refugee policy has undergone significant change since World War II. The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, which instituted a system of proportional quotas based on national origins, was discarded in 1965 following years of criticism that it discriminated against nonwhites. Third World immigrants, especially from Asia and the Americas, have benefited from the immigration laws. However, the problems resulting from unrestricted and undifferentiated immigration are now becoming apparent, even to liberal critics of previous national origins policies. During the 1970s, there was a 61% increase in the number of Mexican nationals in the US and Mexicans currently comprise over 20% of the population in 40 Congressional districts in 8 states. 83.3% of legal immigrants, and all illegal immigrants, are of non-European descent--a fact that may retard their assimilation and intensify ethnic tensions. There is a danger that the concept of national borders may become superfluous. The theoreticval liberalism of the 1950s and 1960s is, in the 1970s, being confronted with the reality of large numbers of immigrants unable and unwilling to be absorbed into a previously European-dominated country. It is concluded that the enforced application of the concept of equality in matters of immigration has not been the panacea that its liberal proponents envisioned.     

The changing skill of new immigrants to the United States: recent trends and their determinants

"The objective of this paper is to describe and understand the determinants of changes in the number and quality of new legal immigrants to the United States over the last 25 years. Our main interest is in understanding the behavioral response of potential immigrants to changes in the U.S. immigration law regime (as well as in the origin-country determinants of demand for immigration to the United States) and how these affect and have affected the skill composition of immigrants.... [The authors] assembled a new data set based on annual INS records of all new, legal immigrants over the period 1972 through 1995.... Inspection of our new data indicates that since the mid 1980s the average skill of new, U.S. legal immigrants has been rising relative to that of the U.S. population. An econometric analysis of a panel of country-specific measures of the skill of immigrants based on these data over the period 1972-1992 indicates that these changes are due in part to changes in immigration law and to the overall rise in the real purchasing power of countries outside the United States."     

A Model of Smuggling and Trafficking of Illegal Immigrants with a Host Country Policy

This paper deals with illegal immigration via two distinct activities—smuggling and trafficking of workers. A destination–source model determines economic pay‐offs and a standard labor market policy works as a deterrent. Tax paid by legal unskilled workers at the destination is determined endogenously and it finances inland monitoring against illegal immigration, holding the border patrol at a given level. The tax also finances unemployment benefit to legal workers at the destination. The number of immigrant smugglers and traffickers is also determined endogenously along with employer penalty and market wage for illegal immigrants. Higher unemployment benefits may reduce illegal wages, raise traffickers’ rent and reduce flow of illegal immigrants from the source countries.     

Does immigration crowd out foreign direct investment inflows? Tradeoff between contemporaneous FDI-immigration substitution and ethnic network externalities

This study examines the dynamic interactions between immigration and inward foreign direct investment (FDI) using bilateral data on these indicators between Japan and each of the 29 countries/economies of origin for both FDI and immigrants into Japan during 1996–2011. Although literature shows a positive FDI–migration relationship, I distinguish between short- and long-term effects of immigration, and show a contemporaneous negative relationship between FDI and immigration. The results show that immigration flows discourage FDI inflows (FDI–migration substitution), although larger immigration stocks induce FDI inflows (ethnic network externalities). Therefore, total effects need to be evaluated considering a tradeoff between contemporaneous substitution and the longer-term complementarity from network effects. While inward FDI promotion and immigration enhancement are often suggested as solutions to resolving shortages in domestic savings and labor, our results have implications for addressing the increasingly daunting policy issue of population aging.