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.
- Language
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Englisch
- Bibliographic citation
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Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 8684
- Classification
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Wirtschaft
International Migration
- Subject
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immigration
skills
productivity
visas
R&D
- Event
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Geistige Schöpfung
- (who)
-
Ghosh, Anirban
Mayda, Anna Maria
Ortega, Francesc
- Event
-
Veröffentlichung
- (who)
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Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
- (where)
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Bonn
- (when)
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2014
- Handle
- Last update
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16.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET
Data provider
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Object type
- Arbeitspapier
Associated
- Ghosh, Anirban
- Mayda, Anna Maria
- Ortega, Francesc
- Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Time of origin
- 2014
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