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Give me your wired and your highly skilled: measuring the impact of immigration policy on employers and shareholders

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  • Carl Lin

    (Beijing Normal University, IZA & Rutgers University)

Abstract

This paper links finance theory to labor economics in the context of migration and immigration policy. Using event analysis, I measure the impact of immigration policy on the firm profits, in particular the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act (ACWIA) of 1998 nearly doubled the available number of H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers in FY 1999. The empirical results show that top H-1B visa user industries enjoyed significant and positive excess returns with the passage of the Act, while industries with little need for H-1B visas experienced no significant changes. Several robustness checks support the results.

Suggested Citation

  • Carl Lin, 2011. "Give me your wired and your highly skilled: measuring the impact of immigration policy on employers and shareholders," Working Papers 2011/17, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    • Handle: RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2011-17
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    Cited by:

    1. Andr� Betzer & Markus Doumet & Ulf Rinne, 2013. "How policy changes affect shareholder wealth: the case of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(8), pages 799-803, May.
    2. Lin, Carl, 2012. "Less Myth, More Measurement: Decomposing Excess Returns from the 1989 Minimum Wage Hike," IZA Discussion Papers 6269, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Lin, Carl, 2011. "Decomposing Excess Returns in Stochastic Linear Models," IZA Discussion Papers 6237, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Skilled immigrants; immigration policy; employers; shareholders; event study; H-1B visa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law

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