Estimating the local employment impacts of immigration: A dynamic spatial panel model

Bernard Fingleton (), Daniel Olner and Gwilym Pryce
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Daniel Olner: University of Sheffield, UK

Urban Studies, 2020, vol. 57, issue 13, 2646-2662

Abstract: This paper highlights a number of important gaps in the UK evidence base on the employment impacts of immigration, namely: (1) the lack of research on the local impacts of immigration – existing studies only estimate the impact for the country as a whole; (2) the absence of long-term estimates – research has focused on relatively short time spans – there are no estimates of the impact over several decades, for example; (3) the tendency to ignore spatial dependence of employment which can bias the results and distort inference – there are no robust spatial econometric estimates we are aware of. We aim to address these shortcomings by creating a unique data set of linked Census geographies spanning five Censuses since 1971. These yield a large enough sample to estimate the local impacts of immigration using a novel spatial panel model which controls for endogenous selection effects arising from migrants being attracted to high-employment areas. We illustrate our approach with an application to London and find that no migrant group has a statistically significant long-term negative effect on employment. EU migrants, however, are found to have a significant positive impact, which may have important implications for the Brexit debate. Our approach opens up a new avenue of inquiry into subnational variations in the impacts of immigration on employment.

Keywords: demographics; diversity/cohesion/segregation; employment/labour; lump of labour fallacy; migration; race/ethnicity; spatial panel models; äººå £ç»Ÿè®¡; å¤šæ ·æ€§/å‡ è šåŠ›/隔离; 就业/劳动力; å›ºå®šåŠ³åŠ¨æ€»é‡ è°¬è®º (lump of labour fallacy); 移民; ç§ æ— /æ— è£”; ç©ºé—´é ¢æ ¿æ¨¡åž‹ (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:57:y:2020:i:13:p:2646-2662

DOI: 10.1177/0042098019887916

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