The Labor Market Effects of a Refugee Wave: Applying the Synthetic Control Method to the Mariel Boatlift

Giovanni Peri and Vasil Yasenov

No 21801, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We apply the Synthetic Control Method to re-examine the labor market effects of the Mariel Boatlift, first studied by David Card (1990). This method improves on previous studies by choosing a control group of cities that best matches Miami’s labor market trends pre-Boatlift and providing more reliable inference. Using a sample of non-Cuban high-school dropouts we find no significant difference in the wages of workers in Miami relative to its control after 1980. We also show that by focusing on small sub-samples and matching the control group on a short pre-1979 series, as done in Borjas (2017), one can find large wage differences between Miami and control because of large measurement error.

JEL-codes: J3 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma and nep-mig
Note: ITI LS
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (53)

Published as Giovanni Peri & Vasil Yasenov, 2019. "The Labor Market Effects of a Refugee Wave," Journal of Human Resources, vol 54(2), pages 267-309.

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