 The effect of low-skilled immigration on local productivity and amenities: Learning from the South Korean experienceHyejin Kim, Jongkwan Lee and Giovanni Peri Journal of Urban Economics, 2025, vol. 146, issue C Abstract: In this study, we evaluate the economic effects of a significant increase in low-skilled immigration in Korean Municipalities. Using a change in immigration policy in 2004 and the pre-existing immigrant networks we estimate the effects of low-skilled immigration on local wages, net native migration, and housing prices. We interpret the findings using a canonical representative agent spatial equilibrium model as in Glaeser and Gottlieb (2009) to infer the equilibrium effects of immigration on local productivity and amenities. An increase of immigrants equal to 1 percent of the local population generated a 1% increase in local productivity and a 1.6% decrease in local amenities. We also find a net migration response of zero among natives deriving from an inflow of those who moved for work-related and an outflow of those who moved for amenity-related reasons. Finally, we find a direct negative effect of the immigration shock on measures of local amenities. Keywords: Immigration; Productivity; Local amenities; South Korea (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juecon:v:146:y:2025:i:c:s0094119025000038 DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2025.103738 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Urban Economics is currently edited by S.S. Rosenthal and W.C. Strange More articles in Journal of Urban Economics from Elsevier |
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