Charles de Pierpont de Burnot
(IRES/LIDAM, UCLouvain)
will give a presentation on
Does immigrants birthplace diversity impact wages? Evidence from new migration flows composition in the US
Abstract: The increasing arrival of people from different origins in high-income countries raises the issue of the coexistence and the exchange of different norms and ideas that affect productivity. This article documents the impact of immigrants birthplace diversity on workers wages at both metropolitan overall and sector-occupation population levels using US data between 2005 and 2019. It exploits the skill similarities and the high levels of interaction of workers from those groups to disentangle the diversity effects from general skill heterogeneity related to national specialisations. It also exploits the rich compositions of the 21st century's migration flows to take cultural and economic distances into account. We find that metropolitan immigrants diversity of workers from the same sectors and occupations is significantly positively related to their wages, especially for occupations with a high content in abstract tasks. These gains tend to be maximised when immigrants birthplace diversity is the result of migrations from countries close economically and culturally.