Do Interest Groups Affect U.S. Immigration Policy?

By Prachi Mishra, Giovanni Facchini, Anna Maria Mayda

October 1, 2008

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Format: Chicago

Prachi Mishra, Giovanni Facchini, and Anna Maria Mayda. Do Interest Groups Affect U.S. Immigration Policy?, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2008) accessed December 22, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

While anecdotal evidence suggests that interest groups play a key role in shaping immigration policy, there is no systematic empirical analysis of this issue. In this paper, we construct an industry-level dataset for the United States, by combining information on the number of temporary work visas with data on lobbying activity associated with immigration. We find robust evidence that both pro- and anti-immigration interest groups play a statistically significant and economically relevant role in shaping migration across sectors. Barriers to migration are lower in sectors in which business interest groups incur larger lobby expenditures and higher in sectors where labor unions are more important.

Subject: Expenditure, Labor, Labor unions, Migration, Unemployment rate

Keywords: Lobbying expenditure, Membership rate, Native worker, Number of visa, Political economy, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

56
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2008/244
Stock No:

WPIEA2008244
ISBN:

9781451871029
ISSN:

1018-5941

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