The Economist:
Migration: Needed but not wanted
1 October 2016
Until quite recently the academic literature treated migrants as substitutes for native workers. But what if they were complements; if low-skilled migrants helped to boost the productivity of low-skilled natives? Gianmarco Ottaviano, of the University of Bologna, and Giovanni Peri, of the University of California, Davis, find that for workers with at least a high-school qualification, the wage effects of low-skill immigration are positive if you drop the assumption that workers of the same age and education are perfect substitutes and that workers of one skill level, say cooks, do not affect the productivity of workers at other skill levels, say waiters or restaurant managers. The effect on the wages of high-school dropouts is only mildly negative. A paper by Marco Manacorda, Alan Manning and Jonathan Wadsworth, of the London School of Economics, similarly concludes that immigrants to Britain are imperfect substitutes for native-born workers, so they have little impact on natives' job prospects or wages. New immigrants tend to affect only the pay of recently arrived immigrants.
This article was published by The Economist on October 1, 2016
Link to article here
Related publications
Immigration, offshoring, and American jobs, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Giovanni Peri and Gregory White, American Economic Review, 103(5), August 2013
Immigration: the link to international trade in services, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Giovanni Peri and Gregory White. Article in CentrePiece Volume 20, Issue 2, Autumn 2015
The impact of immigration on the structure of wages: theory and evidence from Britain, Marco Manacorda, Alan Manning and Jonathan Wadsworth, Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 10, Issue 1, February 2012
The Labour Market Effects of Immigration, Marco Manacorda, Alan Manning and Jonathan Wadsworth. Article in CentrePiece Volume 12, Issue 3, Winter 2008
Related links
Gianmarco Ottaviano webpage
Trade Programme webpage
Marco Manacorda webpage
Alan Manning webpage
Jonathan Wadsworth webpage
Community Programme webpage
Labour Markets Programme webpage