Does Immigration, Particularly Increases in Latinos, Affect African American Wages, Unemployment and Incarceration Rates?
42 Pages Posted: 11 Dec 2012 Last revised: 3 Mar 2013
Date Written: December 8, 2012
Abstract
This paper evaluates the impact of immigration on African American wages, unemployment, employment and incarceration rates using a relatively large cross-sectional data-set of 900 cities. An endemic problem potentially plaguing the cross-sectional metro approach to immigration has been endogeneity. Does increased immigration to a city lead to improved economic outcomes, or does a city's improving labor market attract immigrant inflows? The paper focuses on resolving the endogeneity concerns through a variety of controls, statistical methods and tests. Overall, results strongly support one-way causation from increased immigration including Latinos to higher African American wages and lower poverty. Rising immigration including from Latin America is not responsible for higher Black incarceration rates.
Keywords: immigration, African American, wages
JEL Classification: J15, J61, R23, J1, K42
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation