Task Specialization, Immigration, and Wages

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Peri, Giovanni; Sparber, Chad
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Davis; Colgate University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.1.3.135
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 135-169
• 关键词: impact; PRODUCTIVITY

摘要

Large inflows of less educated immigrants may reduce wages paid to comparably-educated, native-horn workers. However, if less educated foreign- and native-born workers specialize in different production tasks, because of different abilities, immigration will cause natives to reallocate their task supply, thereby reducing downward wage pressure. Using occupational task-intensity data from the O*NET dataset and individual US census data, we demonstrate that foreign-born workers specialize in occupations intensive in manual-physical labor skills while natives pursue jobs more intensive in communication-language tasks. This mechanism can explain why economic analyses find only modest wage consequences of immigration for less educated native-horn workers. (JEL J24, J31, J61)