Journal of Economic Perspectives
ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)
Immigrants, Productivity, and Labor Markets
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 30,
no. 4, Fall 2016
(pp. 3–30)
(Complimentary)
Abstract
Immigration has been a steady force acting on population and employment within countries throughout human history. Focusing on the last four decades, we show that the mix of immigrants to rich countries has been, overall, rather balanced between college and non-college educated. The growth of immigration has been driven by immigrants from nonrich countries. The economic impact of immigration on receiving economies needs to be understood by analyzing the specific skills brought by immigrants. The complementarity and substitutability between immigrants and natives in employment, and the response of receiving economies in terms of specialization and technological choices, are important when considering the general equilibrium effects of immigration. In the United States, a balanced composition of immigrants between college and noncollege educated, together with the adjustment of demand and technology, imply that general equilibrium effects on relative and absolute wages have been small.Citation
Peri, Giovanni. 2016. "Immigrants, Productivity, and Labor Markets." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30 (4): 3–30. DOI: 10.1257/jep.30.4.3Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I26 Returns to Education
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
- J61 Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
There are no comments for this article.
Login to Comment