Labor market competition and the assimilation of immigrants

Christoph Albert, Albrecht Glitz () and Joan Llull
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Albrecht Glitz: https://www.upf.edu/web/econ/faculty/-/asset_publisher/6aWmmXf28uXT/persona/id/3419744

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract: This paper shows that the wage assimilation of immigrants is the result of the intricate interplay between individual skill accumulation and dynamic labor market equilibrium effects. When immigrants and natives are imperfect substitutes, rising immigrant inflows widen the wage gap between them. Using a production function framework in wich workers supply both general and host-country-specific skills, we show that this labor market competition channel explains about one fifth of the large increase in the average immigrant-native wage gap across arrival cohorts in the United States since the 1960s. This figure increases to one third after also accounting for relative demand shifts due to technological change.

Keywords: Immigrant assimilation; labor market competition; cohort sizes; imperfect substitution; general and specific skills (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J21 J22 J31 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-08, Revised 2022-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int, nep-isf, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/1799.pdf Whole Paper (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Labor Market Competition and the Assimilation of Immigrants (2021)
Working Paper: Labor Market Competition and the Assimilation of Immigrants (2021)
Working Paper: Labor Market Competition and the Assimilation of Immigrants (2021)
Working Paper: Labor Market Competition and the Assimilation of Immigrants (2021)
Working Paper: Labor Market Competition and the Assimilation of Immigrants (2021)
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