1,721,060 research outputs found
Media exposure and illegal immigration: Evidence on attitudes from the US
No full textWe use the CCES cross-sectional survey, which took place before the 2006 midterm elections, and analyse the link between attitudes on illegal immigration and media exposure in the US. We find evidence that media exposure significantly affects public opinion on illegal immigration. Controlling for ideology, income and education, individuals watching Fox News are 9 percentage points more likely to oppose the more lenient Senate plan on illegal migration, which allows for a path to citizenship. We find an effect of the same size and direction for CNN viewers. Compared to the other networks, individuals watching PBS are more likely to support the Senate plan. Finally, individuals living in states with a larger fraction of illegal immigrants over total population systematically tend to support the Senate plan. This latter result survives when we instrument the state-specific fraction of
illegal immigrants with distance from Mexico and population size
Illegal immigration and media exposure: Evidence on individual attitudes
No full textIllegal immigration has been the focus of much debate in receiving countries, but little is known about what drives individual attitudes towards illegal immigrants. To study this question, we use the CCES survey, which was carried out in 2006 in the United States. We find evidence that - in addition to standard labor market and welfare state considerations - media exposure is significantly correlated with public opinion on illegal immigration. Controlling for education, income and ideology, individuals watching Fox News are 9 percentage points more likely than CBS viewers to oppose the legalization of undocumented immigrants. We find an effect of the same size and direction for CNN viewers, whereas individuals watching PBS are instead more likely to support legalization. Ideological self-selection into different news programs plays an important role, but cannot entirely explain the correlation between media exposure and attitudes about illegal immigration
Illegal immigration and media exposure: evidence on individual attitudes
Full text linkIllegal immigration has been the focus of much debate in receiving countries, but little is known about the drivers of individual attitudes towards illegal immigrants. To study this question, we use the CCES survey, which was carried out in 2006 in the USA. We find evidence that—in addition to standard labor market and welfare state considerations—media exposure is significantly correlated with public opinion on illegal immigration. Controlling for education, income, ideology, and other socio-demographic characteristics, individuals watching Fox News are 9 percentage points more likely than CBS viewers to oppose the legalization of undocumented immigrants. We find an effect of the same size and direction for CNN viewers, whereas individuals watching PBS are instead more likely to support legalization. Ideological self-selection into different news programs plays an important role, but cannot entirely explain the correlation between media exposure and attitudes about illegal immigration
South-South migration and the labor market: evidence from South Africa
Full text linkUsing census data for 1996, 2001 and 2007 we study the labor market effect of immigration to South Africa. We exploit the variation – both at the district and at the national level –in the share of foreign–born male workers across schooling and experience groups over time. In addition, we use an instrumental variable empirical strategy to estimate the causal effect of immigration on the local labor market. At the district level, we show that increased immigration has a negative and significant effect on natives’ employment rates but not on total income. At the national level, we find that increased immigration has a negative and significant effect on natives’ total income but not on employment rates. Our results are consistent with outflows of natives to other districts as a consequence of migration, as in Borjas (2006)
Essays on Migration
No full textPh.D.The dissertation comprises three chapters. Chapter 1 examines how political shocks impact the interstate migration of low-skilled immigrants, particularly Hispanics. Despite the Democratic Party’s pro-migration stance, regression discontinuity estimation shows a narrow Democratic win in a gubernatorial election leads to lower net interstate migration of low-skilled Hispanic immigrants, whereas low-skilled white natives exhibit higher netflows to the state. During Democratic governors’ terms, Hispanic immigrants experience higher unemployment rates while white natives experience lower unemployment rates. Democratic governors also tend to set higher state minimum wages and Earned Income Tax Credit rates. A simple interpretation, considering imperfect substitution between immigrants and natives in the labor market, indicates migration and labor outcomes align with the labor market policies of Democratic governors. Chapter 2 explores the political impact of first- and second-generation immigrants on US voting outcomes. A higher second-generation immigrant share in a county decreases the Republican vote share, particularly among high-skilled individuals. The study also finds evidence of labor market competition between first- and second-generation immigrants within skill cells. Chapter 3 analyzes how an increase in minimum wage forms divergent migration incentives for low-skilled immigrants and natives, using a theoretical model with imperfect substitution between the two groups in the labor market
Three Essays on The Formation and Mobility of Human Capital in Developing Countries
No full textPh.D.Development and economic growth take place through the more efficient allocation of inputs into more productive uses. Human capital is a key input since it is the main asset of the majority of the population, especially of the poor, in developing countries. What factors attribute to existing barriers to physical and social mobility of human capital in developing countries? How has expanded global trade affected the allocation and accumulation of skill in developing economies? In three chapters, I study the education and internal migration in China and India, and provide answer to these questions.The first chapter investigates how the state borders within India inhibit internal mobility. Internal mobility is a critical component of economic growth and development as it enables the reallocation of labor to more productive opportunities across sectors and regions. Using detailed district-to-district migration data from the 2001 Census of India, this chapter highlights the role of the state borders as significant impediments to internal mobility. The results show that average migration between neighboring districts in the same state is at least 50 percent larger than neighboring districts on different sides of a state border even after accounting for linguistic differences. While the impact of state borders differs by education, age and reason for migration, it is always large and significant. We suggest that inter-state mobility is inhibited by the existence of state level entitlement schemes, ranging from access to subsidized goods through the public distribution system to the bias for states' own residents in access to tertiary education and public sector employment.The second chapter studies on the changes in internal migration flows triggered by China's 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). It adopts a difference-in-difference empirical specification based on variation across Chinese prefectures before and after 2001. Changes in internal migration rates are linked to the reduction in trade policy uncertainty faced by Chinese exporters to the U.S., as measured by the normal-trade-relations (NTR) gap (Handley and Limao 2013; Pierce and Schott 2016). Robust empirical results show that Chinese prefectures facing a larger decline in their average NTR-gap experience a greater increase in internal migration. The results also show that the impact on skilled and unskilled internal migration rates is consistent with the average skill intensity of export industries of a prefecture.The third chapter focuses on human capital accumulation in the context of globalization. I investigate how changes in trade policy, both by China and its trading partners, affect rates of high school completion in Chinese prefectures between 1990 and 2005. I separate the effects of trade policy changes into: (1) reductions in tariffs and trade policy uncertainty abroad; and (2) reductions in Chinese tariffs on intermediate, final, and capital goods. Exploiting spatial variation across 324 Chinese prefectures and temporal variation across 15 age cohorts, I employ a difference-in-difference empirical specification and verify the results with semi-parametric methods. Robust empirical findings suggest that increases in high school completion were more pronounced in prefectures with larger reductions in Chinese tariffs on unskilled-labor-intensive inputs, Chinese tariffs on foreign capital goods, and tariffs abroad on skilled-labor-intensive goods. At the same time, increases in high school completion were attenuated in prefectures facing larger reductions in trade policy uncertainty abroad regarding unskilled-labor-intensive goods. Overall, about half of the total increase in high school completion from 1990 to 2005 can be explained by the net effect of these trade policy changes. I do not find trade policy changes were associated with increased college completion -- possibly due to the fixed capacity of Chinese universities during that time period. Lastly, I provide evidence for three channels through which changes in trade policy affected educational attainment: return to education, opportunity cost of schooling, and supply of education resources
Essays on the Economic and Social Impacts of Immigration
No full textPh.D.This dissertation explores the economic and social impacts of immigration in three essays.In the first chapter, I examine the impact of a large-scale immigration wave into Austria following the Cold War. Using an instrumental variables approach, I estimate the causal effect of immigration on the labor mobility and earnings of native Austrian workers. The immigration shock—which was primarily comprised of low-income blue-collar workers—caused a reallocation of native workers towards white-collar jobs. Panel data on the universe of formal workers allows me to identify the margins underlying this reallocation. Immigration did not increase the rate at which blue-collar workers left employment. Instead, immigration increased the rate blue-collar workers transitioned into white-collar jobs and changed the composition of newly hired workers.In the second chapter, I present a dynamic spatial model of labor markets that examines the adjustment process of workers in the presence of imperfect mobility. The model builds on recent models in trade and urban economics and adapts them to highlight margins that are especially important in the context of immigration. Simulations from a hypothetical economy show that a labor supply shock will affect the mobility decisions not only of those in the exposed region, but also in those regions connected through mobility networks. These spillovers highlight potential pitfalls in empirical work that are not always accounted for in empirical studies.In the third chapter, Alexander Billy and I calculate the crime effects attributable to the Mariel Boatlift, the 1980 Cuban refugee crisis that increased Miami’s population by nearly 10%. Using synthetic control methods to match Miami with cities that exhibit similar pre-intervention crime patterns, we find evidence the phenomenon comparatively increased property crime and murder rates; we also document weaker but suggestive relative growth in violent crime. Compositional features of the newcomers seemingly drive our results; the disproportionately young, male Cuban’s characteristics highly correlate with illicit activity. Given the group’s unique composition and the absence of rigorous screening, our findings likely constitute the upper bound of migration caused crime
A Hidden Economic Growth Engine? The Impact of Second-Generation Immigrants in the U.S.
No full textPh.D.This project studies the causal impact of second-generation immigrants (US-born with at least one foreign-born parent) in the United States on real per-worker GDP using county-level data from 2001 to 2021. My analysis shows that an increase in the second-generation immigrant shares on average increases real per-worker GDP. First-generation immigrants, on the other hand, do not have a significant impact on GDP. The GDP effect of second-generation immigrants varies depending on their skill levels. The high-skilled second-generation immigrants have their impact driven by STEM workers' contribution to technological innovation, while the low-skilled group's influence on local growth is strengthened in counties with more college-graduated non-second-generation workers. These patterns that I observe also vary for high- and low-skilled second-generation immigrants from different countries of origin
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