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Did the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act Reduce the State's Unauthorized Immigrant Population?

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Listed:
  • Sarah Bohn

    (Public Policy Institute of California)

  • Magnus Lofstrom

    (Public Policy Institute of California and IZA)

  • Steven Raphael

    (Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley and IZA)

Abstract

We test for an effect of Arizona's 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA) on the proportion of the state's population characterized as noncitizen Hispanic. We use the synthetic control method to select a group of states against which Arizona's population trends can be compared. We document a notable and statistically significant reduction in the proportion of the Hispanic noncitizen population in Arizona. The decline observed matches the timing of LAWA's implementation, deviates from the time series for the synthetic control group, and stands out relative to the distribution of placebo estimates for other states in the nation. © 2014 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Bohn & Magnus Lofstrom & Steven Raphael, 2014. "Did the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act Reduce the State's Unauthorized Immigrant Population?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(2), pages 258-269, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:96:y:2014:i:2:p:258-269
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    immigration; illegal immigrants; Legal Arizona Workers Act; Hispanics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J8 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

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