Arbeitspapier

The Impact of Skilled Foreign Workers on Firms: An Investigation of Publicly Traded U.S. Firms

Many U.S. businessmen are vocally in favor of an increase in the number of H-1B visas. Is there systematic evidence that this would positively affect firms' productivity, sales, employment or profits? To address these questions we assemble a unique dataset that matches all labor condition applications (LCAs) – the first step towards H-1B visas for skilled foreign-born workers in the U.S. – with firm-level data on publicly traded U.S. firms (from Compustat). Our identification is based on the sharp reduction in the annual H-1B cap that took place in 2004, combined with information on the degree of dependency on H-1B visas at the firm level as in Kerr and Lincoln (2010). The main result of this paper is that if the cap on H-1B visas were relaxed, a subset of firms would experience gains in average labor productivity, firm size, and profits. These are firms that conduct R&D and are heavy users of H-1B workers – they belong to the top quintile among filers of LCAs. These empirical findings are consistent with a heterogeneous-firms model where innovation enhances productivity and is subject to fixed costs.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 8684

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
International Migration
Thema
immigration
skills
productivity
visas
R&D

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Ghosh, Anirban
Mayda, Anna Maria
Ortega, Francesc
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
(wo)
Bonn
(wann)
2014

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Ghosh, Anirban
  • Mayda, Anna Maria
  • Ortega, Francesc
  • Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Entstanden

  • 2014

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