A political economy model of immigration quotas

J. Atsu Amegashie
Additional contact information
J. Atsu Amegashie: Department of Economics, University of Guelph, http://www.uoguelph.ca/~jamegash

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University

Abstract: The paper examines a model in which the number of immigrants allowed into a country is the outcome of a costly political lobbying process between a firm and a union. The union and the firm bargain over the wage of natives after the number of immigrants that will be permitted is known. I consider two contest success functions: one in which the lobbyist with the higher effort is not necessarily the winner and another in which the lobbyist with the higher effort wins with certainty (i.e., the all-pay auction). Comparative statics results are derived to show how the reservation wage of immigrants, the size of the union, the sensitivity of the legislature to lobbying, the reservation of wage of natives, the price of the firm's product and the firm's bargaining power affect immigration quotas and the post-immigration wage of natives. I also discuss some limitations of my results.

Keywords: all-pay auction; immigration; lobbying; mixed strategy; Nash bargaining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D73 J5 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000, Revised 2000-09-19
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.sfu.ca/research/RePEc/sfu/sfudps/dp00-19.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp00-19

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Working Paper Coordinator, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada
http://www.econ.sfu. ... lications/index.html

The price is Canada/United States-$3.00(Cdn)/paper,International-$5.00/paper.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University
Address: Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Working Paper Coordinator ().