Democrats Would Resolve the Question of Whether Illegal Immigrants Burden Society

Merrill Matthews: Democrats Would Resolve the Question of Whether Illegal Immigrants Burden Society

Like most economists, we think legal immigrants can be a huge benefit to the economy—because historically most immigrants, whether legal or otherwise, came here to work.

H1B visas in the United States

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Immigration and Entrepreneurship in America

From a new NBER Working Paper by Sari Pekkala Kerr and William R. Kerr titled, "Immigrant Entrepreneurship in America: Evidence from the Survey of Business Owners 2007 & 2012"

Abstract:

We study immigrant entrepreneurship and firm ownership in 2007 and 2012 using the Survey of Business Owners (SBO).  The survival and growth of immigrant-owned businesses over time relative to native-founded companies is evaluated by linking the 2007 SBO to the Longitudinal Business Database (LBD).  We quantify the dependency of the United States as a whole, as well as individual states, on the contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs in terms of firm formation and job creation.  We describe differences in the types of businesses started by immigrants and the quality of jobs created by their firms.  First-generation immigrants create about 25% of new firms in the United States, but this share exceeds 40% in some states.  In addition, Asian and Hispanic second-generation immigrants start about 6% of new firms. Immigrant-owned firms, on average, create fewer jobs than native-owned firms, but much of this is explained by the industry and geographic location of the firms.  Immigrant-owned firms pay comparable wages, conditional on firm traits, to native-owned firms, but are less likely to offer benefits.

The NBER paper is here.

Waves of immigration and educational attainment: What progress looks like

From a new NBER Working Paper, "Socioeconomic Integration of U.S. Immigrant Groups over the Long Term: The Second Generation and Beyond," by Brian Duncan and Stephen J. Trejo  

Abstract:

In this chapter, we document generational patterns of educational attainment and earnings for contemporary immigrant groups.  We also discuss some potentially serious measurement issues that arise when attempting to track the socioeconomic progress of the later-generation descendants of U.S. immigrants, and we summarize what recent research has to say about these measurement issues and how they might bias our assessment of the long-term integration of particular groups.  Most national origin groups arrive with relatively high educational attainment and/or experience enough improvement between the first and second generations such that they quickly meet or exceed, on average, the schooling level of the typical American.  Several large and important Hispanic groups (including Mexicans and Puerto Ricans) are exceptions to this pattern, however, and their prospects for future upward mobility are subject to much debate.  Because of measurement issues and data limitations, Mexican Americans in particular and Hispanic Americans in general probably have experienced significantly more socioeconomic progress beyond the second generation than available data indicate.  Even so, it may take longer for their descendants to integrate fully into the American mainstream than it did for the descendants of the European immigrants who arrived near the turn of the twentieth century.