Arbeitspapier

Low-wage jobs, foreign-born workers, and firm performance

We examine how migrant workers impact firm performance using administrative data from the United States. Exploiting an unexpected change in firms' likelihood of securing low-wage workers through the H-2B visa program, we find limited crowd-out of other forms of employment and no impact on average pay at the firm. Yet, access to H-2B workers raises firms' annual revenues and survival likelihood. Our results are consistent with the notion that guest worker programs can help address labor shortages without inflicting large losses on incumbent workers.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: Working Paper ; No. 2310

Classification
Wirtschaft
Labor Demand
International Migration
Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
Subject
guest workers
migrants
employment
firm dynamics
H-2B visa

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Amuedo Dorantes, Catalina
Arenas-Arroyo, Esther
Mahajan, Parag
Schmidpeter, Bernhard
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Department of Economics
(where)
Linz
(when)
2023

Last update
10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET

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Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Amuedo Dorantes, Catalina
  • Arenas-Arroyo, Esther
  • Mahajan, Parag
  • Schmidpeter, Bernhard
  • Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Department of Economics

Time of origin

  • 2023

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