Immigration and Business Dynamics: Evidence from US Firms

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mahajan, Parag
• 署名单位: University of Delaware
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvae022
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 2827-2869
• 关键词: skilled immigration; TRADE; IMPACT; PRODUCTIVITY; performance; GROWTH; jobs

摘要

This paper studies the impact of immigration on U.S. local business dynamics using a comprehensive collection of survey and administrative data. It finds heterogeneous impacts across the employer productivity distribution that favor higher-productivity firms and lead to increases in average local earnings. Responses to immigration along the exit margin are particularly important. Immigrant inflows cull establishments from low-productivity firms while preserving establishments from high-productivity firms. Overall, reduced exit accounts for 43% of immigrant-induced job creation and 41% of immigrant-induced earnings growth. A general equilibrium model proposes a mechanism that ties immigrant workers to high-productivity employers and shows how accounting for changes to the employer productivity distribution can yield substantially larger estimates of immigrant-generated economic surplus than canonical models of labor demand.