A Meta-Analytic Assessment of the Effect of Immigration on Wages

Simonetta Longhi, Peter Nijkamp and Jacques Poot

Population Studies Centre Discussion Papers from University of Waikato, Te Ngira Institute for Population Research

Abstract: In our increasingly interconnected and open world, international migration is becoming an important socio-economic phenomenon for many countries. Since the early 1980s, many studies have been undertaken of the impact of immigration on host labour markets. Borjas (2003) noted that the estimated effect of immigration on the wage of native workers varies widely from study to study and sometimes even within the same study. In addition, these effects cluster around zero. Such a small effect is a rather surprising outcome, given that in a closed competitive labour market an increase in labour supply may be expected to exert a downward pressure on wages. We revisit this issue by applying meta-analytic techniques to a sample of eighteen papers, which altogether generated 348 estimates of the percentage change in the wage of a native worker with respect to a one percentage point increase in the ratio of immigrants over native workers. While many studies in our sample employ US data, estimates are obtained from Germany, The Netherlands, France, Norway, Austria, Israel and Australia. Our analysis shows that results vary across countries and are interalia related to the type of modelling approach. Technical issues such as publication bias and quality of the estimates are addressed as well. A negative but small effect of immmigration on wages of native groups with similar skills appears rather robust.

Keywords: Immigration; Labour market; Factor substitution; Meta-analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C51 F22 J31 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2004-12-16
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (81)

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Related works:
Journal Article: A Meta‐Analytic Assessment of the Effect of Immigration on Wages (2005)
Working Paper: A Meta-Analytic Assessment of the Effect of Immigration on Wages (2004)
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