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

Author

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  • Michael A. Clemens
  • Ethan G. Lewis

Abstract

U.S. firms face a binding quota on visas to employ foreign workers in low-skill occupations outside of agriculture. The government allocates this quota to firms in part through a randomized lottery. We evaluate the marginal impact of the quota on firms entering this lottery in 2021 and 2022, using a novel survey and pre-analysis plan. Firms exogenously authorized to employ more immigrants in low-skill jobs significantly increase production (elasticity 0.20–0.22), investment (1.5–2.1), and the rate of profit (0.15). Because the foreign-native elasticity of substitution in production is very low in the policy-relevant occupations (0.8–2.2), the effect on native employment is zero or positive overall, and positive in rural areas. Forensic analysis suggests similarly low substitutability of black-market labor.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael A. Clemens & Ethan G. Lewis, 2022. "The Effect of Low-Skill Immigration Restrictions on US Firms and Workers: Evidence from a Randomized Lottery," NBER Working Papers 30589, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30589
    Note: IO LS
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    Cited by:

    1. Fetzer, Thiemo & Palmou, Christina & Schneebacher, Jakob, 2024. "How do firms cope with economic shocks in real time?," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1517, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    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:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • 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

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