Occupation-specific immigration quotas in political equilibrium

Immigration policies are generally protectionist, yet positive immigration quotas often exist for workers in specific occupations where the native labor supply is scarce. This paper determines occupation-specific immigration quotas in a political economy framework with endogenous prices and compares them to the social optimum. It shows that positive quotas for specific occupations can be the political outcome, even when total welfare effects of immigration are negative. Two of the main findings are that the (unique) voting outcome on immigration quotas is i) positive, if workers are immobile across occupations, and ii) negative (positive) for occupations where the native labor supply is sufficiently large (small), if workers are mobile across occupations.