The economic effect of immigration

Opinion
A survey of economists shows a consensus behind the view that high-skilled immigration makes the average American better off. While there is a positive consensus (albeit lower) that low-skilled immigration makes the average American better off, the same economists agree that unless they were compensated by others, many low-skilled American workers would be substantially worse off if a larger number of low-skilled foreign workers were legally allowed to enter the US each year.

Most studies about the effect of immigration do not factor for geographic migration response

 * Price et al 2020 finds that past positive associations between immigration and local native wages are misleading because those economically hurt by immigration often have to move. Adjusting for this, the positive impact of immigration on native wages goes away.
 * On the other hand, spatial approaches are inherently flawed because people don't move to cities without first considering the local economy. If instead we look at how wages change by occupation according to immigration inflow we find a clear negative effect on native wages

Studies

 * Card 1989, the Mariel Boatlift Study, shows the hoard of immigrants didn’t deflate wages in the long run after a large amount of immigrants moved to a county in Miami, Florida.
 * Research found essentially no impact on native wages, even for low-skilled workers, despite the Mariel Boatlift increasing Miami’s labor force by seven percent. Even former Cuban immigrants didn’t seem to be affected.
 * Limitations includes only measuring one group in one area, instead of continuous mass migration into the United States. It also didn’t account for different classes of people being affected. The immigrants were largely high school dropouts, and when you measure the effect on actual high school dropouts, not the general population, you find a significant decrease in wages. (Borjas 2017)


 * Longhi et al. 2004, a Dutch meta-analysis was conducted on 18 studies done over 28 years on the impact of immigration into the labor market. These 18 studies provided 344 different estimates on the impact of wages. The authors of the meta-analysis controlled for a number of variables, including differences between the areas in the studies (most looked at America, but some looked at European countries) and even political bias from the original researchers. This meta-analysis concluded a 1% increase of immigrants into the labor market produced a 0.119% decrease in wages.
 * Limitations includes the fact that this study looks at the overall effect on all wages. Immigration generally tends to be low-skill which may decrease the wages of low-skill workers. However, the wages of upper class people may be largely raised by the cheap labor of low skill immigration. If we were to only look at the effect of low-skill workers, the number may be different
 * Mouw 2016. Mouw found the two primary methods of measuring the effect of immigration on wages to have some major issues in how they sway the data. To correct for the issues he found, he used the Longitudinal Employer Household Data set. Mouw finds that a 0.0355 increase in immigration of high school dropouts caused a -0.0016% (mean) effect on wages (Mouw 2016). Once again, doesn’t look huge, but of course we should look at the percentage increase required to get that effect. A 1% increase in high school dropouts immigrating would result in a 0.04% decrease in wages. A 10% increase in high school dropouts immigrating would result in a 0.45% decrease in wages. Once again, not a big effect, but a noticeable one.


 * Ottaviano ‎2012 National Bureau of Economic Research paper on the effects immigration has on wages in the United States
 * Study contends previous analyses on the relationship between immigration and wages falsely assumed perfect labor substitutability between immigrants and native workers of similar education levels, distorting results
 * Research shows average American wage RISES due to immigration, both short-term and long-term
 * Only native demographic whose wages drop are High School dropouts who suffer a decrease in wages of approximately ~2% short-term, alleviating to ~1.1% over time.
 * Study finds new immigration does severely impact wages of prior immigrants, suggesting lack of substitutability with *natives.
 * Overall, vast majority of American workers’ wages increase from immigration, High School dropouts (<10% of population) experience a slight decrease which alleviates with time (and there is evidence that immigration may increase native High School graduation rates, too).


 * Ortega, J., & Verdugo, G. (2014).
 * Similar research to the above paper, except conducted on the French labor market.
 * Findings are near-identical; immigration leads to across-the-board wage increases for all except a small minority of low-education native workers.
 * Reaffirms conclusion that there is low substitutability between native workers and immigrant workers.

The effect of immigration on GDP
"George Borjas, the nation's leading immigration economist estimates that the presence of immigrant workers (legal and illegal) in the labor market makes the U.S. economy (GDP) an estimated 11 percent larger ($1.6 trillion) each year.""But Borjas cautions, 'This contribution to the aggregate economy, however, does not measure the net benefit to the native-born population.' This is because 97.8 percent of the increase in GDP goes to the immigrants themselves in the form of wages and benefits."Regardless of GDP increase or decrease of a nation, this measurement tells us little about national well-being.

Agriculture?

sources to look at and organize later


 * "The Immigration Debate | The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration | The National Academies Press". doi:10.17226/5779. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
 * "Immigration costs and benefits — in liberty and otherwise". Washington Post. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
 * "Immigration Policy and Less-Skilled Workers in the United States" (PDF). Retrieved 29 January 2017.
 * "The Costs and Benefits of Immigration" (PDF). Retrieved 29 January 2017.
 * "The Economic Costs of Immigration". Retrieved 29 January 2017.
 * "Taxpayer effects of immigration" (PDF). Retrieved 29 January 2017.