Does Immigration AffectWages? A Meta-Analysis

Does immigration affect wages? No decisive answer has been provided until now. We propose an up-to-date meta-analysis of the literature investigating this question, based on 2,146 estimates from 64 studies published between 1972 and 2019. We find that, on average, the literature reports a negative and close to zero effect of immigration on native wages. This result holds for both low/medium-skilled and high-skilled native individuals. This average effect, however, hides a large heterogeneity across studies. Variation across estimates can be explained by the presence of structural heterogeneity such as the country of analysis or the use of micro-level data, as well as to heterogeneity in research designs such as the use of difference-in-differences. Finally, we estimate a significant and negative effect of publishing in leading academic journals and propose a discussion on the potential publication bias in the literature.