The Impact of Immigration on Firms and Workers: Insights from the H-1B Lottery

Arbeitspapier

We study how random variation in the availability of highly educated, foreign-born workers impacts firm performance and recruitment behavior. We combine two rich data sources: 1) administrative employer-employee matched data from the US Census Bureau; and 2) firmlevel information on the first large-scale H-1B visa lottery in 2007. Using an event-study approach, we find that lottery wins lead to increases in firm hiring of college-educated, immigrant labor along with increases in scale and survival. These effects are stronger for small, skill-intensive, and high-productivity firms that participate in the lottery. We do not find evidence for displacement of native-born, college-educated workers at the firm level, on net. However, this result masks dynamics among more specific subgroups of incumbents that we further elucidate.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 16917

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; International Migration ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
• Subject: immigration ; firm dynamics ; productivity ; H-1B visa ; high-skilled migration

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Mahajan, Parag ; Morales, Nicolas ; Shih, Kevin Y. ; Chen, Mingyu ; Brinatti, Agostina
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2024

Further information

• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:46 AM CET