Immigration Restrictions as Active Labor Market Policy: Evidence from the Mexican Bracero Exclusion / Michael A. Clemens, Ethan G. Lewis, Hannah M. Postel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clemens, Michael A.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lewis, Ethan G.

Postel, Hannah M.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w23125.

NBER working paper series no. w23125

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Immigration Restrictions as Active Labor Market Policy

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2017.

Summary:

There has been little rigorous evaluation of immigration barriers intended to improve domestic terms of employment by shrinking the workforce. We study one such barrier, a policy change that excluded almost half a million Mexican bracero seasonal agricultural workers from the United States. Using novel data to measure state-level exposure to the policy, we reject the wage effect of bracero exclusion predicted by theory in the absence of induced technical change. We fail to reject the hypothesis that exclusion did not affect U.S. agricultural wages or employment. Important mechanisms include adoption of less labor-intensive technologies and shifts in crop mix.

Notes:

Print version record

February 2017.