IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/blkpoe/v41y2014i3p271-297.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Immigration and African American Wages and Employment: Critically Appraising the Empirical Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Mason

Abstract

This paper critically assesses the empirical evidence on the relationship between immigration and African American employment. Studies using various methodologies and data are reviewed: natural experiments, time series, and cross-sectional studies of local labor markets and intertemporal changes in the national labor market. We find that for African Americans as a whole, immigration may have little effect on mean wages and probability of employment. However, there is some evidence that immigration may have had an adverse impact on the labor market outcomes of African Americans belonging to low education-experience groups. However, even this modest conclusion must be qualified: the literature has many unresolved econometric issues that might easily undermine the received wisdom. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Mason, 2014. "Immigration and African American Wages and Employment: Critically Appraising the Empirical Evidence," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 271-297, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:blkpoe:v:41:y:2014:i:3:p:271-297
    DOI: 10.1007/s12114-014-9182-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s12114-014-9182-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12114-014-9182-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr, 2011. "Economic Impacts of Immigration: A Survey," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 1-32, Spring.
    2. George Borjas, 2013. "The analytics of the wage effect of immigration," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-25, December.
    3. Joseph G. Altonji & David Card, 1991. "The Effects of Immigration on the Labor Market Outcomes of Less-skilled Natives," NBER Chapters, in: Immigration, Trade, and the Labor Market, pages 201-234, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Robert J. LaLonde & Robert H. Topel, 1991. "Labor Market Adjustments to Increased Immigration," NBER Chapters, in: Immigration, Trade, and the Labor Market, pages 167-199, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Lonnie Stevans, 2009. "The Relationship Among African American Male Earnings, Employment, Incarceration and Immigration in the United States: A Time Series Approach," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 151-160, December.
    6. Rachel M. Friedberg & Jennifer Hunt, 1995. "The Impact of Immigrants on Host Country Wages, Employment and Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 23-44, Spring.
    7. Abowd, John M. & Freeman, Richard B. (ed.), 1991. "Immigration, Trade, and the Labor Market," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226000954, September.
    8. Mason, Patrick L, 1999. "Male Interracial Wage Differentials: Competing Explanations," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 23(3), pages 261-299, May.
    9. Simonetta Longhi & Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, 2011. "The Economic Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market of Host Countries - Meta-Analytic Evidence," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-103/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. E. Wesley F. Peterson, 2017. "The Role of Population in Economic Growth," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(4), pages 21582440177, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pokrovsky, D. & Shapoval, A., 2015. "Distribution of Entrepreneurial Skills and Migration: Employment Structure, Income Inequality, and Welfare," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 26(2), pages 36-62.
    2. S. Longhi & P. Nijkamp & J. Poot, 2010. "Joint impacts of immigration on wages and employment: review and meta-analysis," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 355-387, December.
    3. Marie Howland & Doan Nguyen, 2010. "The Impact of Immigration on Four Low-Wage Industries in the 1990s," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 24(2), pages 99-109, May.
    4. Abdurrahman Aydemir & George J. Borjas, 2011. "Attenuation Bias in Measuring the Wage Impact of Immigration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 69-113, January.
    5. Dustmann Christian & Preston Ian P, 2007. "Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-41, November.
    6. Joan Llull, 2018. "The Effect of Immigration on Wages: Exploiting Exogenous Variation at the National Level," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 53(3), pages 608-662.
    7. Simonetta Longhi & Peter Nijkamp & Jacques Poot, 2009. "Regional Economic Impacts of Immigration: A Review," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-047/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 23 Jul 2009.
    8. Lucia Dalla Pellegrina & Margherita Saraceno, 2017. "Posting of workers across the EU: an empirical investigation," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 423-451, December.
    9. Bodvarsson, Örn B. & Van den Berg, Hendrik F. & Lewer, Joshua J., 2008. "Measuring immigration's effects on labor demand: A reexamination of the Mariel Boatlift," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 560-574, August.
    10. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Myriam Quispe-Agnoli, 2008. "The labor market experience and impact of undocumented workers," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2008-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    11. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Myriam Quispe-Agnoli & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2012. "The wage impact of undocumented workers," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2012-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    12. Braun, Sebastian & Omar Mahmoud, Toman, 2014. "The Employment Effects of Immigration: Evidence from the Mass Arrival of German Expellees in Postwar Germany," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(1), pages 69-108, March.
    13. Foged, Mette & Hasager, Linea & Yasenov, Vasil, 2019. "The Role of Institutions in the Labor Market Impact of Immigration," SocArXiv 3aj4n, Center for Open Science.
    14. Hsiao-chuan Chang, 2002. "Do Foreign Workers Have An Adverse Effect On The Native Unskilled Labor In Taiwan?," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 837, The University of Melbourne.
    15. Tremblay, Rodrigue, 1998. "Mobilité internationale des facteurs de production en situation de chômage et de libre-échange," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 74(2), pages 245-271, juin.
    16. Bonin, Holger, 2017. "The Potential Economic Benefits of Education of Migrants in the EU," IZA Research Reports 75, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Kugler, Adriana & Yuksel, Mutlu, 2008. "Effects of Low-Skilled Immigration on U.S. Natives: Evidence from Hurricane Mitch," IZA Discussion Papers 3670, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Von Berlepsch, Viola, 2017. "Does population diversity matter for economic development in the very long-term? Historic migration, diversity and county wealt," CEPR Discussion Papers 12347, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Isil Erol & Umut Unal, 2021. "Employment Effects of Immigration to Germany in the Period of Migration Policy Liberalization, 2005–2018," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202104, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    20. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Native Internal Migration and the Labor Market Impact of Immigration," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 10, pages 275-312, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigration; Unemployment; Race; African American; Latino; Inequality; Dissimilarity; Discrimination; J1; J2; J3; J7; F66;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination
    • F66 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Labor

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:blkpoe:v:41:y:2014:i:3:p:271-297. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.