TY - JOUR
T1 - Implications of U.S. Immigration policies for North American economies
AU - Devadoss, Stephen
AU - Zhao, Xin
AU - Luckstead, Jeff
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright 2020 the authors
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - We develop a four-sector (labor-intensive agriculture, capital-intensive agriculture, service & construction, and manufacturing) general-equilibrium model of North American countries to analyze the effects of tighter U.S. immigration policies. Results show that these policies Erode the comparative advantage of U.S. labor-intensive agriculture, causing U.S. production and exports to fall and other countries to expand their exports to the United States. In Mexico, low-skilled labor demand in labor-intensive agriculture increases as production rises. The effectiveness of U.S. tighter immigration policies depends on the substitutability between U.S. domestic and undocumented workers. Immigration policies exacerbate the wedge between Mexican low-skilled wage rate and the undocumented wage rate, intensifying the underlying cause for unauthorized entry.
AB - We develop a four-sector (labor-intensive agriculture, capital-intensive agriculture, service & construction, and manufacturing) general-equilibrium model of North American countries to analyze the effects of tighter U.S. immigration policies. Results show that these policies Erode the comparative advantage of U.S. labor-intensive agriculture, causing U.S. production and exports to fall and other countries to expand their exports to the United States. In Mexico, low-skilled labor demand in labor-intensive agriculture increases as production rises. The effectiveness of U.S. tighter immigration policies depends on the substitutability between U.S. domestic and undocumented workers. Immigration policies exacerbate the wedge between Mexican low-skilled wage rate and the undocumented wage rate, intensifying the underlying cause for unauthorized entry.
KW - Labor flow
KW - Labor-intensive sectors
KW - Trade
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85078532219&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.22004/ag.econ.298440
DO - 10.22004/ag.econ.298440
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85078532219
SN - 1068-5502
VL - 45
SP - 161
EP - 178
JO - Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics
JF - Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics
IS - 1
ER -