Assessing inherent model bias: An application to native displacement in response to immigration

Giovanni Peri and Chad Sparber

Journal of Urban Economics, 2011, vol. 69, issue 1, 82-91

Abstract: There is a long-standing debate among academics about the effect of immigration on native internal migration decisions. If immigrants displace natives this may indicate a direct cost of immigration in the form of decreased employment opportunity for native workers. Moreover, displacement would also imply that cross-region analyses of wage effects systematically underestimate the consequences of immigration. The widespread use of such area studies for the US and other countries makes it especially important to know whether a native internal response to immigration truly occurs. This paper introduces a microsimulation methodology to test for inherent bias in regression models that have been used in the literature. We show that some specifications have built biases into their models, thereby casting doubt on the validity of their results. We then provide a brief empirical analysis with a panel of observed US state-by-skill data. Together, our evidence argues against the existence of native displacement. This implies that cross-region analyses of immigration's effect on wages are still informative.

Keywords: Immigration; Microsimulation; Native; displacement; Internal; migration; Crowding; out; Employment; effects; Model; bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (133)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094-1190(10)00062-8
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Assessing Inherent Model Bias: An Application to Native Displacement in Response to Immigration (2010)
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:eee:juecon:v:69:y:2011:i:1:p:82-91

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
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().