IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sfu/sfudps/dp00-19.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A political economy model of immigration quotas

Author

Abstract

The paper examines a model in which the number of immigrants allowed into a country is the outcome of a costly political lobbying process between a firm and a union. The union and the firm bargain over the wage of natives after the number of immigrants that will be permitted is known. I consider two contest success functions: one in which the lobbyist with the higher effort is not necessarily the winner and another in which the lobbyist with the higher effort wins with certainty (i.e., the all-pay auction). Comparative statics results are derived to show how the reservation wage of immigrants, the size of the union, the sensitivity of the legislature to lobbying, the reservation of wage of natives, the price of the firm's product and the firm's bargaining power affect immigration quotas and the post-immigration wage of natives. I also discuss some limitations of my results.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Atsu Amegashie, 2000. "A political economy model of immigration quotas," Discussion Papers dp00-19, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, revised 19 Sep 2000.
    • Handle: RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp00-19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sfu.ca/repec-econ/sfu/sfudps/dp00-19.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George J. Borjas, 2021. "The Economic Benefits from Immigration," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 13, pages 411-430, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Amegashie, J Atsu, 1999. "The Number of Rent-Seekers and Aggregate Rent-Seeking Expenditures: An Unpleasant Result," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 99(1-2), pages 57-62, April.
    3. Clark, Derek J, 2000. "How Unpleasant a Result?: A Comment on Amegashie," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 102(3-4), pages 365-367, March.
    4. Alan G. Green & David A. Green, 1999. "The Economic Goals of Canada's Immigration Policy, Past and Present," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 25(4), pages 425-451, December.
    5. Dan Kovenock & Michael R. Baye & Casper G. de Vries, 1996. "The all-pay auction with complete information (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 8(2), pages 291-305.
    6. Booth,Alison L., 1994. "The Economics of the Trade Union," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521468398, January.
    7. Myers, Gordon M. & Papageorgiou, Yorgos Y., 2000. "Immigration control and the welfare state," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 183-207, February.
    8. Amegashie, J. Atsu, 2001. "An all-pay auction with a pure-strategy equilibrium," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 79-82, January.
    9. B. Douglas Bernheim & Michael D. Whinston, 1986. "Menu Auctions, Resource Allocation, and Economic Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(1), pages 1-31.
    10. Becker, Gary S, 1991. "A Note on Restaurant Pricing and Other Examples of Social Influences on Price," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(5), pages 1109-1116, October.
    11. Amegashie, J Atsu, 1999. "The Design of Rent-Seeking Competitions: Committees, Preliminary and Final Contests," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 99(1-2), pages 63-76, April.
    12. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1994. "Protection for Sale," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 833-850, September.
    13. Baye, Michael R & Kovenock, Dan & de Vries, Casper G, 1993. "Rigging the Lobbying Process: An Application of the All-Pay Auction," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 289-294, March.
    14. Epstein, Gil S. & Nitzan, Shmuel, 2004. "Strategic restraint in contests," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 201-210, February.
    15. Amegashie, J Atsu, 2000. "Some Results on Rent-Seeking Contests with Shortlisting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 105(3-4), pages 245-253, December.
    16. Glazer, Amihai & Konrad, Kai A., 1999. "Taxation of rent-seeking activities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 61-72, April.
    17. Che, Yeon-Koo & Gale, Ian L, 1998. "Caps on Political Lobbying," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 643-651, June.
    18. Arye L. Hillman & John G. Riley, 1989. "Politically Contestable Rents And Transfers," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 17-39, March.
    19. Ellingsen, Tore, 1991. "Strategic Buyers and the Social Cost of Monopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 648-657, June.
    20. Clark, D.J. & Riis, C., 1996. "On the Win Probability in Rent-Seeking Gemes," Memorandum 1996_005, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    21. Benhabib, Jess, 1996. "On the political economy of immigration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(9), pages 1737-1743, December.
    22. George J. Borjas, 1994. "The Economics of Immigration," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1667-1717, December.
    23. Gil Epstein & Shmuel Nitzan, 2006. "The struggle over migration policy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(4), pages 703-723, October.
    24. Che, Yeon-Koo & Gale, Ian, 1997. "Rent Dissipation When Rent Seekers Are Budget Constrained," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 92(1-2), pages 109-126, July.
    25. Kooreman, Peter & Schoonbeek, Lambert, 1997. "The specification of the probability functions in Tullock's rent-seeking contest," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 59-61, September.
    26. Amegashie, J Atsu, 2000. "How Unpleasant a Result?: A Reply to Derek J. Clark," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 102(3-4), pages 369-372, March.
    27. Donald A. Walker (ed.), 2000. "Equilibrium," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 1585.
    28. Nitzan, Shmuel, 1994. "Modelling rent-seeking contests," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 41-60, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Facchini, Giovanni & Mayda, Anna Maria & Mishra, Prachi, 2011. "Do interest groups affect US immigration policy?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 114-128, September.
    2. Carlotta Berti Ceroni & Giorgio Bellettini, 2004. "Unions and the political economy of immigration," 2004 Meeting Papers 494, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    3. Facchini, Giovanni & Mayda, Anna Maria & Mishra, Prachi, 2007. "Do Interest Groups Affect Immigration?," IZA Discussion Papers 3183, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Gil Epstein & Shmuel Nitzan, 2006. "The struggle over migration policy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(4), pages 703-723, October.
    5. Gil S. Epstein & Odelia Heizler (Cohen), 2008. "Illegal migration, enforcement, and minimum wage," Research in Labor Economics, in: Work, Earnings and Other Aspects of the Employment Relation, pages 197-224, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    6. Gil S. Epstein, 2013. "Frontier issues of the political economy of migration," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 22, pages 411-431, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Simon Guidecoq & Michel Rocca, 2010. "Réforme "Obama" de la politique d'immigration et pronostics des théories économiques : les influences de la majorité politique et de la conjoncture économique," Post-Print halshs-00560088, HAL.
    8. Giuseppe Russo & Luigi Senatore, 2013. "Who contributes? A strategic approach to a European immigration policy," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-16, December.
    9. Benjamin Powell, 2012. "Coyote ugly: the deadweight cost of rent seeking for immigration policy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 195-208, January.
    10. Giuseppe Russo, 2011. "Voting over selective immigration policies with immigration aversion," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 325-351, December.
    11. G. Bellettini & C. Berti Ceroni, 2004. "A positive analysis of immigration policy," Working Papers 520, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    12. Lena Calahorrano & Oliver Lorz, 2011. "Aging, Factor Returns, and Immigration Policy," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(5), pages 589-606, November.
    13. Bertrand CRETTEZ, 2011. "Is Selling Immigration Rights Politically Sustainable ?," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 2011042, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    14. Tapio Palokangas, 2008. "Self-Interested Governments, Unionization, and Legal and Illegal Immigration," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 2(1), pages 007-020, March.
    15. Giorgio Bellettini & Carlotta Berti Ceroni, 2005. "When the Union Hurts the Workers: A Positive Analysis of Immigration Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 1421, CESifo.
    16. Gil Epstein, 2006. "The political economy of population economics," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(2), pages 255-257, June.
    17. Ken Yahagi, 2018. "Private law enforcement with competing groups," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 285-297, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Konrad, Kai A., 2007. "Strategy in contests: an introduction [Strategie in Turnieren – eine Einführung]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2007-01, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    2. Münster, Johannes, 2005. "Lobbying contests with endogenous policy proposals," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 41, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    3. Münster, Johannes, 2005. "Lobbying contests with endogenous policy proposals [Lobby Wettkämpfe mit endogenen Politikvorschlägen]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2005-11, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    4. John Duggan & Jacque Gao, 2020. "Lobbying as a multidimensional tug of war," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(1), pages 141-166, January.
    5. Ewerhart, Christian, 2017. "Contests with small noise and the robustness of the all-pay auction," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 195-211.
    6. Gil Epstein & Yosef Mealem, 2015. "Politicians, governed versus non-governed interest groups and rent dissipation," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 79(1), pages 133-149, July.
    7. Gil Epstein & Shmuel Nitzan, 2006. "The struggle over migration policy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(4), pages 703-723, October.
    8. Segev, Ella & Sela, Aner, 2014. "Multi-stage sequential all-pay auctions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 371-382.
    9. Gil Epstein & Ira Gang, 2007. "Who Is The Enemy?," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 469-484.
    10. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.
    11. Kyung Hwan Baik & Jong Hwa Lee, 2013. "Endogenous Timing In Contests With Delegation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(4), pages 2044-2055, October.
    12. Baik, Kyung Hwan, 1998. "Difference-form contest success functions and effort levels in contests," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 685-701, November.
    13. Cotton, Christopher, 2009. "Should we tax or cap political contributions? A lobbying model with policy favors and access," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 831-842, August.
    14. Ron Seigel, 2009. "Asymmetric Contests with Conditional Investments," Levine's Working Paper Archive 814577000000000201, David K. Levine.
    15. Johannes Münster, 2007. "Contests with investment," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(8), pages 849-862.
    16. Alcalde, José & Dahm, Matthias, 2010. "Rent seeking and rent dissipation: A neutrality result," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 1-7, February.
    17. Gil S. Epstein & Yosef Mealem, 2013. "Politicians, Governed vs. Non-Governed Interest Groups and Rent Dissipation," Working Papers 2013-09, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics.
    18. Gil S. Epstein & Shmuel Nitzan, 2003. "Political culture and monopoly price determination," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 21(1), pages 1-19, August.
    19. Gil Epstein & Igal Milchtaich & Shmuel Nitzan & Mordechai Schwarz, 2007. "Ambiguous political power and contest efforts," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 113-123, July.
    20. Baik, Kyung Hwan & Kim, In-Gyu & Na, Sunghyun, 2001. "Bidding for a group-specific public-good prize," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 415-429, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    all-pay auction; immigration; lobbying; mixed strategy; Nash bargaining;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • J5 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp00-19. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Working Paper Coordinator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/desfuca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.