This website uses cookies.

By clicking the "Accept" button or continuing to browse our site, you agree to first-party and session-only cookies being stored on your device to enhance site navigation and analyze site performance and traffic. For more information on our use of cookies, please see our Privacy Policy.

  1. Home
  2. Journals
  3. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
  4. July 2009
  5. Task Specialization, Immigration, and Wages

Task Specialization, Immigration, and Wages

  • Giovanni Peri
  • Chad Sparber
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics
vol. 1, no. 3, July 2009
(pp. 135-69)
Download Full Text PDF

Abstract

Large inflows of less educated immigrants may reduce wages paid to comparably-educated, native-born workers. However, if less educated foreign- and native-born workers specialize in different production tasks, because of different abilities, immigration will cause natives to reallocate their task supply, thereby reducing downward wage pressure. Using occupational task-intensity data from the O*NET dataset and individual US census data, we demonstrate that foreign-born workers specialize in occupations intensive in manual-physical labor skills while natives pursue jobs more intensive in communication-language tasks. This mechanism can explain why economic analyses find only modest wage consequences of immigration for less educated native-born workers. (JEL J24, J31, J61)

Citation

Peri, Giovanni, and Chad Sparber. 2009. "Task Specialization, Immigration, and Wages." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1 (3): 135-69. DOI: 10.1257/app.1.3.135

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
  • J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
  • J61 Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
There are no comments for this article.
Login to Comment