Bounding the Price Equivalent of Migration Barriers

Michael Clemens, Claudio Montenegro and Lant Pritchett

No 9789, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Large international differences in the price of labor can be sustained by differences between workers, or by natural and policy barriers to worker mobility. We use migrant selection theory and evidence to place lower bounds on the ad valorem equivalent of labor mobility barriers to the United States, with unique nationally-representative microdata on both U.S. immigrant workers and workers in their 42 home countries. The average price equivalent of migration barriers in this setting, for low-skill males, is greater than $13,700 per worker per year. Natural and policy barriers may each create annual global losses of trillions of dollars.

Keywords: migration; growth; impact; GDP; tariff; quota; deadweight; cost; visa; barrier; price; wedge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 J71 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int, nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published - published in: Review of Economics and Statistics, 2019, 101 (2), 201–213.

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https://docs.iza.org/dp9789.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Bounding the Price Equivalent of Migration Barriers (2016)
Working Paper: Bounding the Price Equivalent of Migration Barriers (2016)
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