Do Interest Groups Affect US Immigration Policy?

Giovanni Facchini (), Anna Maria Mayda () and Prachi Mishra

No 6898, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: While anecdotal evidence suggests that interest groups play a key role in shaping immigration policy, there is no systematic empirical analysis of this issue. In this paper, we construct an industry-level dataset for the United States, by combining information on the number of temporary work visas with data on lobbying activity associated with immigration. We find robust evidence that both pro- and anti-immigration interest groups play a statistically significant and economically relevant role in shaping migration across sectors. Barriers to migration are lower in sectors in which business interest groups incur larger lobby expenditures and higher in sectors where labour unions are more important.

Keywords: Immigration; Immigration Policy; Interest Groups; Political Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ltv, nep-mig and nep-pol
Date: Written 2008-07

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP6898.asp (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Do Interest Groups Affects US Immigration Policy?
Working Paper: Do Interest Groups Affect U.S. Immigration Policy? (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6898

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP6898.asp

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers
Address: Centre for Economic Policy Research, 53--56 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DG
Series data maintained by ().