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The Effect of Low-Skill Immigration Restrictions on US Firms and Workers: Evidence from a Randomized Lottery

Author

Listed:
  • Michael A. Clemens

    (George Mason University
    IZA
    CReAM
    Center for Global Development)

  • Ethan G. Lewis

    (Dartmouth College
    NBER
    CESifo
    CReAM)

Abstract

The US limits work visas for low-skill jobs outside of agriculture, with a binding quota that firms access via a randomized lottery. We evaluate the marginal impact of the quota on firms entering the 2021 H-2B visa lottery using a novel survey and pre-analysis plan. Firms exogenously authorized to employ more immigrants significantly increase production (elasticity +0.16) with no decrease or an increase in US employment (elasticity +0.10, statistically imprecise) across several pre-registered subsamples. The results imply very low substitutability of native for foreign labor in the policy-relevant occupations. Forensic analysis suggests similarly low substitutability of black-market labor.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael A. Clemens & Ethan G. Lewis, 2023. "The Effect of Low-Skill Immigration Restrictions on US Firms and Workers: Evidence from a Randomized Lottery," Working Papers 629, Center for Global Development.
    • Handle: RePEc:cgd:wpaper:629
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    Cited by:

    1. Thiemo Fetzer & Christina Palmou & Jakob Schneebacher, 2024. "How Do Firms Cope with Economic Shocks in Real Time?," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 337, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    2. Jeremias Nieminen & Sanni Kiviholma & Ohto Kanninen & Hannu Karhunen, 2024. "Regulating Labor Immigration: The Effects of Lifting Labor Market Testing," Working Papers 344, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    3. Christian Dustmann & Uta Schoenberg, 2025. "Linking Empirical Evidence to Theory: A Framework for Understanding Immigrations Labor Market Effects," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 2522, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    4. Silliman, Mikko & Willén, Alexander, 2024. "Worker Power, Immigrant Sorting, and Firm Dynamics," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 13/2024, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    5. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Esther Arenas-Arroyo & Parag Mahajan & Bernhard Schmidpeter, 2023. "Low-wage jobs, foreign-born workers, and firm performance," Economics working papers 2023-10, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis

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