Friday, August 8, 2014

Poetry in migration

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome

Just about the time when you think you've had your fill of econometricians who can't find the forest for the trees, we'll instead think of Michele Battisti, Gabriel Felbermayr, Giovanni Peri, and Panu Poutvaara;
Our analysis shows that immigration into imperfectly competitive labour markets need not be worsening labour market outcomes for natives. Instead, it can improve the job creation incentives of firms. Thus, measures that aim at eliminating the immigrant–native wage gap may hurt natives. This positive effect is threatened if immigrants are too often unemployed or if too many of them are unskilled. Policies reducing the rate of job loss for immigrants would therefore help natives. Finally, in contrast to widespread belief, immigrants do not seem to hurt low-skilled natives, even in the more realistic framework developed here. This is because immigration is often balanced between more and less educated, because its job-creation effect can help, and because redistribution towards immigrants is not as large as often suggested in the debate.
I.e., what the econ textbook argues.

No comments:

Post a Comment