Electoral systems and immigration

Unexplored stylized facts on OECD countries suggest that plurality electoral systems are associated with higher openness to immigration. We propose an explanation based on a retrospective voting model where immigration hurts voters but benefits a rent-seeking policymaker who appropriates part of the income generated by immigrants. To be reappointed, the policymaker must distribute the compensation. With respect to proportional systems, plurality systems make it possible to compensate only a few decisive districts and leave after-compensation rents higher, therefore producing higher immigration. In our model, non-decisive districts receive no compensation at all under both electoral systems, providing a rationale for widespread anti-immigration attitudes. Notably, our results also help to explain why governments often seem more pro-immigration than do voters. Finally, our model predicts that opposition to immigration is more geographically dispersed in plurality systems. Basic evidence supports this prediction.     

Documenting the unauthorized: Political responses to unauthorized immigration

Cultural prejudice rather than self interest is the conventional wisdom for why voters respond negatively to immigration. Using a new measure of unauthorized immigrants based on self‐reported invalid social security numbers, we show that voters’ responses are more nuanced than mere prejudice against minorities. Using county level data from the U.S. state of Georgia, we find that voters in counties with above median levels of unauthorized workers are more likely to support the Republican Party. We also find that wealthier counties and wealthier voters are most likely to respond negatively to the unauthorized. Our evidence warns against arguments that depict opposition to immigration as motivated solely by xenophobia and cultural fears among lower income Whites.     

Restricted immigration in a two-sector economy

This paper will analyze income redistribution and fiscal effects caused by immigration in a two-sector economy, where one sector is closed and where foreign and domestic labor are homogeneous. The setup of this model is guided by the stylized fact that today's immigrants in the European Union are distributed highly unequal across sectors, with a clear concentration in low-income sectors. Unlike many previous studies, we do not interpret this segmentation by means of differential skills because we focus on tomorrow's potential immigrants from former communist countries in northeastern Europe, which exhibit education levels similar to those of western European workers. Contrary to results from one-sector models, some pure wage earners may also win from immigration as a result of changing relative prices. Therefore, the political support for immigration depends not only on the capital ownership distribution, but also on relative immigration sector size and relative sector productivity. Furthermore, the necessary tax rate to finance the transfer system may decrease as a result of immigration. The authors thank the participants of the Forty-Seventh International Atlantic Economic Conference, Vienna, Austria, March 16–23, 1999, in particular, Willi Altzinger, Koen Schoors, and Heinz Hollenstein, for their valuable comments which helped to improve this paper considerably.     

Risk preference,immigration policy and illegal immigration

The paper analyzes the effects of government policy upon illegal immigration. The model used as a vehicle for this analysis is an extension of Ethier's one-small-country model of illegal immigration to a two-country context. We distinguish between the cases of capital immobility and free capital mobility, and consider illegal immigration when there are border patrols by the government and when there are internal enforcement procedures in effect. Unlike previous researchers who have assumed risk neutrality, we examine the impacts of government policy when prospective illegal immigrants exhibit risk averse and risk loving behavior. The relaxation of the risk neutrality assumption leads to the possibility of multiple and unstable equilibria. Moreover, attitudes to risk and the probability of detection are shown to have implications for some equilibrium responses to tighter surveillance.     

Risk preference,immigration policy and illegal immigration

The paper analyzes the effects of government policy upon illegal immigration. The model used as a vehicle for this analysis is an extension of Ethier's one-small-country model of illegal immigration to a two-country context. We distinguish between the cases of capital immobility and free capital mobility, and consider illegal immigration when there are border patrols by the government and when there are internal enforcement procedures in effect. Unlike previous researchers who have assumed risk neutrality, we examine the impacts of government policy when prospective illegal immigrants exhibit risk averse and risk loving behavior. The relaxation of the risk neutrality assumption leads to the possibility of multiple and unstable equilibria. Moreover, attitudes to risk and the probability of detection are shown to have implications for some equilibrium responses to tighter surveillance.     

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.     

International immigration and economic welfare in an efficiency wage model: The co-existence case of both legal and illegal foreign workers

Abstract. In the developed countries some native workers are unemployed while there exist illegal unskilled (legal skilled) foreign workers who are complementary to (substitutable for) natives and their wages are usually lower than (equal to) that of natives. Reflecting this situation, we introduce two types of immigrant in an efficiency wage model. It is shown that domestic government should exclude illegal foreign workers but welcome legal ones if the total number of illegal immigrants is small enough and well controlled. On the other hand, legal immigration should be restricted if the flood of illegal immigration is out of control.     

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.     

Wish you were here? Quasi-experimental evidence on the effect of education on self-reported attitude toward immigrants

We use European Social Survey and Labour Force Survey data from 2002 to 2012 to estimate the causal effect of years of education on European natives׳ opinion toward immigration, by exploiting the exogenous discontinuity generated by reforms in compulsory education in Europe in the 1940s through the 1990s. Our findings show that higher levels of education lead to a more positive reported attitude toward immigrants. We also investigate the mechanisms behind the effect of education on reported attitudes by evaluating both economic and non-economic channels. We find that higher levels of education place individuals in occupations that are less exposed to the negative effects of migration, although not in sectors/occupations where the share of migrants is necessarily smaller, suggesting that migrants and low-educated natives may be complementary rather than substitutes in the labour market. In addition, education alters values and the cognitive assessment of the role of immigration in host societies, with a positive effect on reported attitude toward diversity and on the assessment of immigration׳s role in host countries. Our findings suggest that education as a policy instrument can increase social cohesion in societies that are subject to large immigration flows.     

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.     

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."     

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.     

Illegal Migration, Border Enforcement, and Growth

This paper analyzes the economic consequences of illegal migrants in the context of a model of trade and growth. In the model, capital and domestic labor are mobile sectors while illegal migrants are sector-specific. These assumptions give rise to a production possibility curve (with migrants) that lies partially inside the zero migration production possibility frontier. It is this feature of the model which generates ambiguous results regarding the relation betweendomestic welfare, illegal migrants, and enforcement. The steady-state growth path with migrants may lie above or below the balanced growth path without migrants.     

Illegal immigration in a heterogeneous labor market

This paper examines the effects of illegal immigration in a neoclassical growth model with two groups of workers, skilled and unskilled. We show that although illegal immigration is a boon to a country as a whole, there are distributional effects, whose sign is in general ambiguous. This is because all sources of income of both groups are affected and some of these changes tend to move income in opposite directions. Nevertheless, calibration exercises show that the wealth distribution is likely to become more unequal as the number of illegal immigrants increases. We confirm most of our calibration results analytically in a small open economy version of the basic model. Finally, our results remain robust when we extend the model to allow for endogenous skill acquisition.     

The political economy of naturalization

This paper presents a political economy model in which self‐interested natives decide when citizenship and/or voting rights should be granted to foreign‐born workers. Native voters know that immigrants hold different ‘political’ preferences and would thus tend to postpone their enfranchisement as much as possible. They also consider, however, that a more restrictive naturalization policy may reduce the gains from immigration. We find that the optimal timing of naturalization depends on the quantity, quality (productivity), and preferences of potential immigrants, the political composition and the age structure of the native population, as well as the sensitivity of migration choices to the citizenship issue.     

Is the new immigration less skilled than the old?

This paper analyzes trends in the skills of immigrants to the US in the post-World War II period. Changes in the supply, demand, and institutional factors determining immigration are analyzed for their implications for immigrant skills. During the past 4 decades immigration has shifted from being predominantly European and Canadian in origin to being predominantly Asian and Latin American, and there have been changes in the criteria for rationing immigration visas. Immigrant skills can be analyzed within the context of a model of the supply of immigrants and the US demand for immigrants. Of the Asian immigrants subject to numerical limitation, the proportion who were occupational preference principals declined from 18.2% in 1970, to 11.9% in 1975, to 8.1% in 1981. A growing stock of the foreign-born population who are illegal aliens may lower immigrant quality; for low-skilled workers in neighboring low-income countries the economic incentives for illegal migration are very large. Immigrants from the UK have the highest annual earnings, with Canadian, other European, South Asian, East Asian, and other American immigrants having successively lower earnings. The Mexicans and the Vietnamese have the lowest earnings. Over the period 1950 to 1980, US immigration changed from primarily drawing immigrants from countries whose nationals have high relative earnings in the US primarily drawing immigrants from countries whose nationals do less well. Recent immigrants are less favorably selected on the basis of their level of schooling. The analysis of the relative earnings of immigrants during the 1970s using 3 data files shows there has been little change for white immigrants, an ambiguous pattern for Mexican immgrants, perhaps a small decline for Cuban immigrants, and a small rise for Asian immigrants. Overall, without returning to rationing by country of origin, public policy could raise immigrant skill levels by changing the balance between kinship and the individual's skills in the rationing of visas.     

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.     

Do non-citizens affect U.S. Congressional elections?

U.S. citizens against immigration argue that immigrants commit voter fraud and skew election outcomes towards progressive candidates. These arguments have increased in number and severity since the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that states cannot require photo identification from voters. We examine whether the size of the non-citizen population is related to election outcomes. Previous research indicates that non-citizens sway elections in favour of progressive candidates but only in elections where the victory margin is small. We find no evidence of a relationship between non-citizens and vote outcomes. We find evidence that the percent of the population that is non-white is positively related to percent of votes cast for democratic candidates.     

Driving forces for standardization at standardization development organizations

This paper investigates sector-specific driving forces for the standardization activities at national standardization organizations. In the first part, theoretical hypotheses concerning sector-specific standardization are derived. The empirical test is performed by a two-step procedure. First, based on 19 sectors, these hypotheses are tested empirically for Germany. The results show that R&D-intensive sectors standardize very actively; additionally, intellectual property rights play an important role. Furthermore, standardization increases with the concentration of the enterprises up to a certain threshold, where standardization activities decline again. Finally, export-intensive sectors tend to standardize more. Secondly, because of the small data base, these hypotheses are empirically tested in a pool model, an international cross-section approach based on 20 sectors and seven countries. These results are generally in concordance with the findings of Germany. After a summary of the results, recommendations for future standardization practice are given.     

Controlling Illegal Immigration: Border Control vs. Domestic Enforcement

This paper presents a two-country general equilibrium model where international mobility of labor is prohibited. Illegal immigration nevertheless occurs. The probability of success at illegal immigration depends on resources allocated to border control and domestic enforcements. We examine the effects of switching resources form border control to domestic enforcement on illegal immigration and on welfare levels. We characterize the allocation of resources between the two methods of immigration control, that minimizes illegal immigration, and find that, starting from this allocation, moving resources from border control to domestic enforcement is unambiguously welfare improving for the destination country.