The Effect of Low-Skill Immigration Restrictions on US Firms and Workers: Evidence from a Randomized Lottery

2022/10/01 by Michael A. Clemens, Ethan Lewis · 1 voice · 3 citations
Social Sciences · #Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research #Migration and Labor Dynamics #Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

paper · doi:10.1257/app.20250049

Abstract

The U.S. limits work visas for low-skill jobs outside of agriculture, with a binding quota that firms access via a randomized lottery. We evaluate the marginal impact of the quota on firms entering the 2021 H-2B visa lottery using a novel survey and pre-analysis plan. Firms exogenously authorized to employ more immigrants significantly increase production (elasticity +0.16) with no decrease or an increase in U.S. employment (elasticity +0.10, statistically imprecise) across several pre-registered subsamples. The results imply very low substitutability of native for foreign labor in the policy-relevant occupations. Forensic analysis suggests similarly low substitutability of black-market labor.

Citations

• The effect of the H-1B quota on the employment and selection of foreign-born labor
• The Labor Market Effects of Immigration Enforcement

Cited by

• Temporary Fixes, Permanent Problems: Implications of the Growing Reliance on Liminal Status in U.S. Immigration Policy
• Trading Places: Mobility Responses of Native- and Foreign-Born Adults to the China Trade Shock
• Immigration and Business Dynamics: Evidence from U.S. Firms

Discussions

• 🗣️ Published today in @aeajournals.bsky.social. Ethan Lewis and I use a visa lottery, as a nationwide randomized experiment, to test the effects of foreign labor on US firms and workers. doi.org/10 [bsky, 163 points, 1 comments]

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