Spillovers from immigrant diversity in cities

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Citation: Thomas Kemeny, Abigail Cooke (2017/05/31) Spillovers from immigrant diversity in cities. Journal of Economic Geography (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1093/jeg/lbx012
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1093/jeg/lbx012
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1093/jeg/lbx012
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Spillovers from immigrant diversity in cities
Download: https://academic.oup.com/joeg/article/18/1/213/3859144
Tagged: immigration (RSS)

Summary

Using the U.S. Census Bureau’s confidential Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD), a matched employer–employee dataset of U.S. workers and their work establishments covering nearly all employees in 29 states from 1991-2008 authors pursue 3 research questions about how workers’ wages change in response to changes in the diversity in the cities where they live, as well as in the establishments where they work.

(RQ1) For the average urban worker, does the immigrant diversity present in one’s city or workplace generate productivity externalities?

Yes. Wages are taken as indicator of productivity. Immigrant diversity is indicated by standard birthplace fractionalization.

(RQ2) Are such spillovers unevenly distributed among workers occupying different segments of the labor market?

Yes, across four quartiles of income.

(RQ3) Who generates spillovers from immigrant diversity? Is it diversity among all workers, or among only those occupying higher labor market segments?

Mostly higher labor market segments.

Positive spillover effects are found at both firm and metro area level.

Existing literature on immigrant worker impact on wages discussed, as well as paper's methodological contributions.