Present and Accounted For
Unauthorized Immigration and Local Government Finances
Jess Cornaggia, Kimberly Cornaggia & Ryan Israelsen
Pennsylvania State University Working Paper, November 2024
Abstract:
This paper examines how unauthorized immigration affects the fiscal health of local governments in the United States. Using detailed data on unauthorized immigrants’ countries of origin and arrival dates from the Syracuse TRAC database, we isolate immigration flows driven by social, economic, and political conditions in source countries. We predict local immigration patterns using a shift-share instrument based on pre-existing foreign-born population distributions. We find that the economic effects of unauthorized immigration depend crucially on local labor market conditions. In areas with structurally tight labor markets -- characterized by low unemployment and low labor force participation -- unauthorized immigration correlates with lower municipal bond yields. However, areas with typical labor market conditions experience higher yields. Areas with “sanctuary” status also experience higher yields when exposed to unauthorized immigration. These yield effects reflect underlying economic mechanisms: unauthorized immigration predicts loosening of labor markets in areas where they were previously tight, whereas in sanctuary areas, unemployment rates increase by more than twice as much. We find unauthorized immigration explains higher expenditures on local public amenities, including welfare assistance, construction, education, and law enforcement, but these expenditures are not offset by higher tax revenues. Overall, our results provide novel insights into the local economic effects of unauthorized immigration.
Skilled Immigration, R&D Concentration, and Industry Consolidation
Rajesh Aggarwal & Mufaddal Baxamusa
Review of Corporate Finance Studies, November 2024, Pages 966-998
Abstract:
We demonstrate a novel link between skilled immigration restrictions, corporate innovation, and industry consolidation. Binding restrictions on H1B visas are a shock to firms’ R&D labor supply, leading firms to shift R&D expenditures and employees overseas. Organizationally and financially constrained firms are less able to adjust to the restrictions. They reduce basic research and patenting, are less able to acquire other firms for intellectual property, and are more likely to exit. Industry concentration and firm-level markups increase when firms are better able to adjust. This increase in market power is an unintended consequence of skilled immigration restrictions.
Does the "Melting Pot" Still Melt? Internet and Immigrants’ Integration
Alexander Yarkin
Brown University Working Paper, December 2024
Abstract:
The global spread of the Internet and the rising salience of immigration are two of the biggest trends of the last decades. And yet, the effects of new digital technologies on immigrants -- their social integration, spatial segregation, and economic outcomes -- remain unknown. This paper addresses this gap: it shows how home-country Internet expansion affects immigrants' socio-economic integration in the US. Using DID and event-study methods, I find that home-country Internet expansion lowers immigrants' linguistic proficiency, naturalization rates, and economic integration. The effect is driven by younger and less educated immigrants. However, home-country Internet also decreases spatial and occupational segregation, and increases subjective well-being of immigrants. The time use data suggests that the Internet changing immigrants' networking is part of the story. I also show the role of return intentions and Facebook usage, among other factors. These findings align with a Roy model of migration, augmented with a choice between host- vs. home-country ties. Overall, this paper shows how digital technologies transform the immigration, diversity, and social cohesion nexus.
Chinese investors in the US residential rental market: Micro evidence
Chuan Lin et al.
Real Estate Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article examines rental prices charged by Chinese investors in the US residential rental market. Focusing on homes purchased by an individual investor and subsequently rented from 2000 to 2021 in Orange County, CA, we find that Chinese landlords, who are identified by all-cash buyers with Chinese names, charge an average rental price discount of 4.0% compared with domestic landlords. The underlying mechanisms are likely a wealth effect and risk diversification strategy. The rental price discount is more pronounced for luxury, larger, and newly built properties. Our study complements studies of the China shock effect on US housing markets.
Can foreign aid reduce the desire to emigrate? Evidence from a randomized controlled trial
Miranda Simon, Cassilde Schwartz & David Hudson
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Parallel to traditional immigration control policies, states send substantial amounts of foreign aid to address the root causes of migration. Using a randomized controlled trial (RCT), we evaluate a representative type of “root causes” aid (RCA) project in Africa, implemented by the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM). We find the project reduced aspirations to migrate and slowed preparations for the journey. Multiple mediation analysis shows “instrumental place attachment” -- or the ability to pursue important goals in one's place of residence compared to other destinations -- is the main driver. However, effects wane 6 months after project end. That a small RCA project increased instrumental place attachment, albeit briefly, is significant given global inequalities. We explore this finding by conducting interviews with international organization (IO) and nongovernmental organization (NGO) practitioners to understand how development organizations affect instrumental place attachment, and with youth to understand how interventions (un)successfully moderate the choice to stay or migrate.
No country for model minorities: Evidence of discrimination against Asian noncitizen immigrants in the U.S. nursing home market
Chengxin Xu & Danbee Lee
Public Administration Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although public administration scholars have long been studying discriminative behavior of frontline servants of public service organizations, whether and to what extent Asians and noncitizen immigrants may suffer from frontline discrimination in the United States lacks evidential support. To fill this gap, we conducted a corresponding field experiment in the U.S. nursing home market (N = 6428). Our findings identify substantial discrimination against Asians and noncitizen immigrants. Holding other factors constant, nursing homes with long-term care services in the United States are less responsive to and less likely to offer services to Asians and noncitizen immigrants, compared to Whites and citizens, respectively. Such discrimination is observed in all public, private for-profit, and nonprofit nursing homes, whereas private for-profit nursing homes demonstrated less discrimination. This study has implications for describing frontline discrimination in government-regulated public service organizations and for scholarly understanding of the mechanism of such discrimination.
Closing Ranks: Organized Labor and Immigration
Carlo Medici
Brown University Working Paper, November 2024
Abstract:
This paper shows that immigration fostered the emergence of organized labor in the United States. I digitize archival data to construct the first county-level dataset on historical U.S. union membership and use a shift-share instrument to isolate a plausibly exogenous shock to the labor supply induced by immigration, between 1900 and 1920. Counties with higher immigration experienced an increase in the probability of having labor unions, the number of union branches, the share of unionized workers, and the number of union members per branch. This increase occurred more prominently among skilled workers, particularly in counties more exposed to labor competition from immigrants, and in areas with less favorable attitudes towards immigration. Taken together, these results are consistent with existing workers forming and joining labor unions for economic as well as social motivations. The findings highlight a novel driver of unionization in the early 20th-century United States: in the absence of immigration, the average share of unionized workers during this period would have been 22% lower. The results also identify an unexplored consequence of immigration: the development of institutions aimed at protecting workers' status in the labor market, with effects that continue into the present.
Re-righting the law: The impact of VRA preclearance on language minorities
James Harrison & Aaron Gamino
Economics & Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The 1975 Voting Rights Act (VRA) extended voting rights protections to language minority groups. Employing a triple difference design, we find that language minority voter turnout remained stable in VRA-shielded counties while it eroded elsewhere. This led to a reallocation of state educational funds away from unshielded counties. As a result, shielded counties experienced preferable changes in their high school graduation rates, white-collar job attainment, and income. We find most of these differences were driven by the VRA's preclearance provision.
Health Care Access and Utilization and the Latino Health Paradox
Clara Barajas et al.
Medical Care, November 2024, Pages 706-715
Background: The Latino health paradox is the phenomenon whereby recent Latino immigrants have, on average, better health outcomes on some indicators than Latino immigrants who have lived in the United States longer and US-born Latinos and non-Latino Whites. This study examined whether the paradox holds after accounting for health care access and utilization.
Methods: The 2019-2020 National Health Interview Survey data were used. The main predictors included population groups of foreign-born and US-born Latinos (Mexican or non-Mexican) versus US-born non-Latino Whites. Predicted probabilities of health outcomes (self-reported poor/fair health, overweight/obesity, hypertension, coronary heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and depression) were calculated and stratified by length of residence in the United States (<15 or ≥15 years) among foreign-born Latinos and sex (female or male). Multivariable analyses adjusted for having a usual source of care other than the emergency department, health insurance, a doctor visit in the past 12 months, predisposing and enabling factors, and survey year.
Results: After adjusting for health care access, utilization, and predisposing and enabling factors, foreign-born Latinos, including those living in the United States ≥15 years, had lower predicted probabilities for most health outcomes than US-born non-Latino Whites, except overweight/obesity and diabetes. US-born Latinos had higher predicted probabilities of overweight/obesity and diabetes and a lower predicted probability of depression than US-born non-Latino Whites.
Everyone Steps Back? The Widespread Retraction of Crowd-Funding Support for Minority Creators when Migration Fear is High
John (Jianqiu) Bai et al.
NBER Working Paper, November 2024
Abstract:
We study funding gaps on Kickstarter across multiple ethnic groups from 2009-2021. Scaling the concept of racially salient events, we quantify the close co-movement of minority funding gaps in crowd-funding to inflamed political rhetoric surrounding migration. The funding gap for minorities more than doubles in the most inflamed periods compared to baseline. Results are especially acute for Hispanic creators. Distant, mostly white backers are typically important for projects reaching a critical threshold of funding support. Retractions in support for minority creators during tense periods are even spatially, as present in liberal cities as conservative ones.