scholarly journals Labor Market Segmentation and Immigrant Competition: A Quantal Response Statistical Equilibrium Analysis

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noé M. Wiener
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Market Competition ◽  
Maximum Entropy Principle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Statistical Equilibrium ◽  
Equilibrium Analysis ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Quantal Response

Competition between and within groups of workers takes place in labor markets that are segmented along various, often unobservable dimensions. This paper proposes a measure of the intensity of competition in labor markets on the basis of limited data. The maximum entropy principle is used to make inferences about the unobserved mobility decisions of workers in US household data. The quantal response statistical equilibrium class of models can be seen to give robust microfoundations to the persistent patterns of wage inequality. An application to labor market competition between native and foreign-born workers in the United States shows that this class of models captures a substantial proportion of the informational content of observed wage distributions.

scholarly journals Monopsony Power and Guest Worker Programs

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric M. Gibbons ◽  
Allie Greenman ◽  
Peter Norlander ◽  
Todd Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Market Competition ◽  
The United States ◽  
Guest Workers ◽  
Guest Worker ◽  
Full Extent ◽  
Monopsony Power ◽  
Program Data

Guest workers on visas in the United States may be unable to quit bad employers due to barriers to mobility and a lack of labor market competition. Using H-1B, H-2A, and H-2B program data, we calculate the concentration of employers in geographically defined labor markets within occupations. We find that many guest workers face moderately or highly concentrated labor markets, based on federal merger scrutiny guidelines, and that concentration generally decreases wages. For example, moving from a market with a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of zero to a market comprised of two employers lowers H-1B worker wages approximately 10%, and a pure monopsony (one employer) reduces wages by 13%. A simulation shows that wages under pure monopsony could be 47% lower, suggesting that employers do not use the full extent of their monopsony power. Enforcing wage regulations and decreasing barriers to mobility may better address issues of exploitation than antitrust scrutiny alone.

scholarly journals Risk, Recessions and Resilience: Towards Sustainable Local Labor Markets through Employment Portfolio Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7926
Author(s):  
Bharman Gulati ◽  
Stephan Weiler
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Local Labor Markets ◽  
Local Labor Market ◽  
Business Survival ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
New Business

This paper explores the role of local labor market dynamics on the survival of new businesses. The characteristics of the local labor market are likely to influence the survival of new businesses, the level of entrepreneurship, and the resilience of the regional economy. We apply portfolio theory to evaluate employment-based and income-based measures of risk-and-return trade-offs in local labor markets on new business survival in the United States. Our results show that volatility in local labor markets has a positive impact on new business survival, especially in Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The results are robust across different timeframes, including during economic downturns, thus highlighting the contribution of new businesses in developing the resilience of the local economy, and further promoting sustainable regional economic development.

scholarly journals Tradability and the Labor‐Market Impact of Immigration: Theory and Evidence From the United States

Econometrica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 1071-1112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariel Burstein ◽  
Gordon Hanson ◽  
Lin Tian ◽  
Jonathan Vogel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Simple Condition ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
Local Labor Market ◽  
Relative Wages ◽  
Theoretical Mechanism ◽  
Using Data

In this paper, we study how occupation (or industry) tradability shapes local labor‐market adjustment to immigration. Theoretically, we derive a simple condition under which the arrival of foreign‐born labor into a region crowds native‐born workers out of (or into) immigrant‐intensive jobs, thus lowering (or raising) relative wages in these occupations, and we explain why this process differs within tradable versus within nontradable activities. Using data for U.S. commuting zones over the period 1980–2012, we find—consistent with our theory—that a local influx of immigrants crowds out employment of native‐born workers in more relative to less immigrant‐intensive nontradable jobs, but has no such effect across tradable occupations. Further analysis of occupation labor payments is consistent with adjustment to immigration within tradables occurring more through changes in output (versus changes in prices) when compared to adjustment within nontradables, thereby confirming our model's theoretical mechanism. We then use the model to explore the quantitative consequences of counterfactual changes in U.S. immigration on real wages at the occupation and region level.

Immigration and Labor Market Outcomes in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 630-652
Author(s):  
Allen Hyde ◽  
Michael Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Labor Market Outcomes ◽  
Economic Restructuring ◽  
The United States ◽  
Earnings Inequality ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
The Relationship

Two broad orientations have motivated scholarship on the relationship between immigration and labor market outcomes in the United States. The first, the supply-side perspective, often focuses on how immigration affects a variety of outcomes such as unemployment, casualization, and earnings inequality. The second, the demand-side perspective, generally contends that these labor market outcomes result mainly from economic restructuring that subsequently attracts immigrants to labor markets. Previous studies have often reached divergent conclusions due to differing assumptions about the direction of causality in these relationships. In this paper, we use three-stage least squares regression, a technique that allows for nonrecursive relationships, to adjudicate the direction of causality between immigration and labor market outcomes. Using 2010 data for 366 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, we find support for the demand-side perspective, or that economic restructuring results in higher unemployment, casualization, and earnings inequality, which subsequently increases levels of immigration in metropolitan labor markets.

Double Disadvantage

2016 ◽  
Vol 666 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Durand ◽  
Douglas S. Massey ◽  
Karen A. Pren
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Undocumented Migrants ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
Illegal Migrants ◽  
Secondary Sector ◽  
Substantial Decline

From 1988 to 2008, the United States’ undocumented population grew from 2 million to 12 million persons. It has since stabilized at around 11 million, a majority of whom are Mexican. As of this writing, some 60 percent of all Mexican immigrants in the United States are in the country illegally. This article analyzes the effect of being undocumented on sector of employment and wages earned in the United States. We show that illegal migrants are disproportionately channeled into the secondary labor market, where they experience a double disadvantage, earning systematically lower wages by virtue of working in the secondary sector and receiving an additional economic penalty because they are undocumented. Mexican immigrants, in particular, experienced a substantial decline in real wages between 1970 and 2010 attributable to their rising share of undocumented migrants in U.S. labor markets during a time when undocumented hiring was criminalized.

scholarly journals The Structure of Labor Markets in the US and China: Social Capital andGuanxi

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy DiTomaso ◽  
Yanjie Bian
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Organizational Policies ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Differences

ABSTRACTDespite the major cultural and political differences between the United States and China, in both countries access to jobs is supposed to be guided by fair and equitable procedures. In the US, there is a presumption of an open labor market in which potential employees compete on the basis of their qualifications, where the fairness of decisions is guided by anti-discrimination laws and normative organizational policies. In China, although there is a history of close relationships that guide the exchange of favors, following the 1949 revolution, Communist Party leaders were given the authority to allocate positions in ways that were supposed to eliminate special privileges of class and background. Yet recent research has suggested that social connections are an important part of getting a job in both the US and China for two-thirds to three-quarters of job seekers. In the US context, such connections are described as social capital. In the Chinese context, connections are defined asguanxi. In this article, we review research on labor market processes in both the US and China to address three important questions: (a) How can we understand the similar functioning of labor markets in such distinct cultural and political systems as the US and China? (b) What are the mechanisms or processes by which people find jobs in the US and China, and how are people able to access these mechanisms or processes in the context of constraining social structures and legal environments? and (c) What are the theoretical implications of the ‘generalized particularism’ that seems to shape labor markets in both the US and China.

scholarly journals The Labor-Market Skills of Foreign-born Workers in the United States, 2007–2017

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Rubén Hernández-Murillo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Skill Levels ◽  
Apparent Increase ◽  
The Past ◽  
Precipitous Decline

Various measures of the labor-market skills of foreign-born workers have improved during the past decade. The largest gains are concentrated among immigrants from Mexico, who traditionally have shown the lowest skill levels among foreign-born workers. The data suggest that the apparent increase in skills is the result of a shift in the distribution of immigrants coming to the United States, with increased immigration of workers from Asia and a precipitous decline in immigration of workers from Mexico.

Labor Monopsony in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 11-29
Author(s):  
Eric A. Posner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Market Power ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
The United States ◽  
Market Concentration ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Low Wages

Most labor markets are monopsonistic, meaning that employers have market power and can suppress wages below the competitive rate. Among the various sources of market power is concentration: the usually small number of employers who compete to offer a type of job to workers. At one time, economists assumed that labor markets were competitive, and largely ignored the phenomenon of labor market concentration. Recent empirical work, relying on newly available databases, has established that labor market concentration is a serious problem in the United States and may account for a wide range of pathologies, including low wages, inequality, and stagnant economic growth.

The Effect of Americanization on the Earnings of Foreign-born Men

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-40
Author(s):  
George J. Borjas ◽  
Barry R. Chiswick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
White Men ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Labor Market Experience ◽  
Market Experience

The earnings of foreign-born adult white men, as reported in the 1970 Census of Population, are analyzed through comparisons with the native born and among the foreign born by country of origin, years in the United States, and citizenship. Differences in the effects of schooling and postschool training are explored. Although immigrants initially earn less than the native born, their earnings rise more rapidly with U.S. labor market experience, and after 10 to 15 years their earnings equal, and then exceed, those of the native born. Earnings are unrelated to whether the foreign born are U.S. citizens.

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