When

April 10, 2023 | 4:00 pm

April 10, 2023 | 5:15 pm

Where

108 Chambers Building

Nicolas Morales from Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond will present "The Impact of Immigration on Firms and Workers: Insights from the H-1B Lottery and US Employer-Employee Data", with Agostina Brinatti, Mingyu Chen, Parag Mahajan, and Kevin Shih.

Abstract: We study how random variation in the availability of highly educated immigrants impacts firm performance and recruitment behavior. To do so we combine two rich data sources: 1) the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD), an employer-employee matched data set from the US Census Bureau, and 2) firm-level information on the large-scale 2007 and 2008 H-1B visa lotteries. Using an event-study approach, we find that lottery wins induce a permanent increase in a firm's college-educated immigrant workforce, revenues and labor productivity. We then investigate what type of firms benefit the most from H-1B workers and how they adjust native hiring in response to immigration.