This page specifically deals with the United States. The more general argument can be found at the suppression of wages of natives page.
Note: A somewhat misleadingly framed pro-immigration argument that is often made in this debate is discussed here: immigrants do jobs natives won’t do.
George Borjas, an economist at Harvard University, is one of the most reputed academic critics of immigration. Among academics studying the impact of immigration on native wages in the United States, he has estimates that are on the most pessimistic side. His research is the basis of a widely quoted factoid that immigration to the United States has been responsible for an 8% decline in the wages of high school dropouts in the United States. See a blog entry on his actual findings and a lengthy article by Borjas about immigration for a popular audience.
Other economists have reached more optimistic conclusions. Here are some of these:
- Rethinking the Effects of Immigration on Wages by Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri.
- Economic Impacts of Immigration: A Survey (PDF, 48 pages), NBER working paper by Kerr and Kerr.
- Restriction or Legalization? Measuring the Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform by Peter B. Dixon and Maureen T. Rimmer for the Cato Institute.
- Immigration, Wages, and Compositional Amenities by David Card, Christian Dustmann and Ian Preston.
- The Effects of Immigration on the Labor Market Outcomes of Less-Skilled Natives by David Card and Joseph Altonji.
Blog posts and articles
- How Does Immigration Impact Wages? by Alex Nowrasteh reviews the papers by Borjas & Katz and Ottaviano & Peri with graphs and charts summarizing the key findings of both papers.
- Myths and migration: Do immigrants really hurt American workers’ wages? in The Economist, reviewing the different sides of the empirical debate.
- As Immigrants Move In, Americans Move Up by Daniel Griswold in the Free Trade Bulletin for the Cato Institute.
- A Drought of Reason and Investigation, a web memo by Alex Nowrasteh critiquing claims that immigrants take away jobs from natives (in the US context).
- An Economic Case for Immigration by Benjamin Powell in a monthly column for the Econlib website.
- How More Immigration Can Save California by Bryan Caplan, about the NBER working paper by Kerr and Kerr.
- Immigration Followup by Steven Landsburg, where he compares the gains made by migrants against the losses suffered by Americans due to the decline in their wages.
- Immigrants Can Help Create More Jobs, a New York Times op-ed by Tyler Cowen.
- Open Borders blog posts:
- Why are academia and Silicon Valley pro-immigration? by Vipul Naik, October 13, 2012.
- Economists want more immigration, why don’t you? by John Lee, July 27, 2013.
- See also Open Borders blog posts tagged under:
Videos
Top Three Myths about Immigration by Benjamin Powell:
The Impact of Immigration on Jobs and Income by Antony Davies
Economic Benefits of Immigration: The first 20 minutes by Shikha Dalmia and the last 10 minutes by Alex Nowrasteh review some of the evidence, most of which is linked to on the page you’re currently reading.
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