The Effect of Immigration Restrictions on Local Labor Markets: Lessons from the 1920s Border Closure

Ran Abramitzky, Philipp Ager, Leah Boustan, Elior Cohen and Casper Hansen

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2023, vol. 15, issue 1, 164-91

Abstract: In the 1920s, the United States substantially reduced immigration by imposing country-specific entry quotas. We compare local labor markets differentially exposed to the quotas due to variation in the national-origin mix of their immigrant population. US-born workers in areas losing immigrants did not benefit relative to workers in less exposed areas. Instead, in urban areas, European immigrants were replaced with internal migrants and immigrants from Mexico and Canada. By contrast, farmers shifted toward capital-intensive agriculture, and the immigrant-intensive mining industry contracted. These differences highlight the uneven effects of the quota system at the local level.

JEL-codes: J15 J18 J31 K37 N32 N42 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200807 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E143182V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200807.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/app.20200807.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:15:y:2023:i:1:p:164-91

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/app.20200807

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics is currently edited by Alexandre Mas

More articles in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().