On estimating the effects of immigrant legalization: do U.S. agricultural workers really benefit?

The question of whether legalization affects immigrants’ economic returns has been the focus of many empirical studies in recent decades. Results have consistently shown that there are significant wage dif ferences between legal and illegal workers. However, the validity of such findings has been qu...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Sampaio, Breno, Sampaio, Tony, GUSTAVO RAMOS SAMPAIO
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:Brasil
Institución:Instituição de Ensino Superior e de Pesquisa (INSPER)
Repositorio:Repositório Institucional da INSPER
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.insper.edu.br:11224/4858
Acceso en línea:https://repositorio.insper.edu.br/handle/11224/4858
https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aat012
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Economic outcomes
Undocumented workers
Immigration
Identification
Descripción
Sumario:The question of whether legalization affects immigrants’ economic returns has been the focus of many empirical studies in recent decades. Results have consistently shown that there are significant wage dif ferences between legal and illegal workers. However, the validity of such findings has been questioned, given the lack of good identification strategies to account for omitted variables. In this article we pro pose using techniques designed to address the issue of selection into treatment based (to some degree) on unobservables. Our results suggest that lower skill levels—not discrimination—explain differences in immigrants’ economic outcomes