IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/crp/wpaper/93.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Heterogeneous Labor Market Effects of Immigration

Author

Listed:
  • Mathis Wagner

    (CeRP - Collegio Carlo Alberto, Turin)

Abstract

In this paper I provide estimates of the impact of immigration on native wage and employment levels (rather than on wage inequality which has been the focus of the literature). I use variation within 2-digit industries across regions using Austrian panel data from 1986 to 2004 for identification. Using an instrumental variable strategy I find large displacement effects in the service sector and large native employment increases in manufacturing due to immigration. This heterogeneous response is explained by large increases in output in manufacturing, due to a high elasticity of product demand, as immigration reduces the cost of production, while on average demand is far less elastic in service industries. Estimated substitution effects, for a given level of output, are large in both industries and in line with US estimates. The structural estimates imply that a 10% increase in the number of immigrants in all industries reduces average native wages by around 0.25% and results in 4% of the native labor force changing industry, primarily from services to manufacturing. Hence, the effect of immigration on worker relocation across industries is far larger than its impact on average native wages.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathis Wagner, 2010. "The Heterogeneous Labor Market Effects of Immigration," CeRP Working Papers 93, Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy).
    • Handle: RePEc:crp:wpaper:93
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cerp.carloalberto.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/wp_93.pdf?f6fa34
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Christian Dustmann & Uta Schönberg & Jan Stuhler, 2017. "Labor Supply Shocks, Native Wages, and the Adjustment of Local Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 435-483.
    2. Thomas Horvath, 2012. "Immigration and the Distribution of Wages in Austria," DANUBE: Law and Economics Review, European Association Comenius - EACO, issue 3, pages 55-69, March.
    3. Javier Ortega & Gregory Verdugo, 2022. "Who stays and who leaves? Immigration and the selection of natives across locations," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 221-260.
    4. Ulltveit-Moe, Karen Helene & Moxnes, Andreas & Bratsberg, Bernt & Raaum, Oddbjørn, 2019. "Opening the Floodgates: Industry and Occupation Adjustments to Labor Immigration," CEPR Discussion Papers 13670, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:crp:wpaper:93. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Silvia Maero (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cetorit.html .

    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.