Diversity in Segmention. Patterns of Immigrant Competition in US Labor Markets

Noe Wiener ()
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Noe Wiener: Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

No 1901, Working Papers from New School for Social Research, Department of Economics

Abstract: Competition between immigrant and native workers takes place in labor markets that are segmented along various, often unobservable dimensions. It is desirable to measure the extent to which native workers are effectively shielded from competition by immigrant workers by virtue of such patterns of segmentation. This paper proposes measures of group differences in labor market segmentation on the basis of incomplete data, such as can be obtained from the US Census. These measures are derived from a general class of models of labor competition in the Smithian tradition. The observed wage distributions of native and foreign-born workers in the United States (at the national and metropolitan level) can be approximated remarkably well with this class of model, suggesting that a parsimonious account of wage inequality is feasible.

Keywords: Immigration; labor market competition; segmented labor markets; wage inequality; statistical equilibrium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J31 J42 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2019-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int, nep-lma, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://www.economicpolicyresearch.org/econ/2019/NSSR_WP_012019.pdf First version, 2019 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:new:wpaper:1901

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