The Native-Born Occupational Skill Response to Immigration within Education and Experience Cells

Emily Gu () and Chad Sparber
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Emily Gu: Department of Economics, Colgate University

No 2015-04, Working Papers from Department of Economics, Colgate University

Abstract: Studies estimating the consequences of immigration on wages paid to native-born workers often uncover small to nonexistent effects when using cross city or state variation (the "spatial approach") but large deleterious effects when using variation across education-by-experience cells (the "national approach"). One mechanism of labor market adjustment emphasized in the spatial approach is that native-born workers respond to immigration by specializing in occupations demanding skills in which they have a comparative advantage, thereby helping to protect themselves from labor market competition and wage losses. This paper examines whether the national approach also identifies this skill response. We find evidence that such a response does occur, which reduced the magnitude of within-cell wage effects by more than 20%.

Keywords: Immigration; Occupational Skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J24 J31 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-07-31, Revised 2015-08-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Native-Born Occupational Skill Response to Immigration within Education and Experience Cells (2017)
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