%0 Report
        %A Clemens, Michael A.
%A Lewis, Ethan Gatewood
        %T The Effect of Low-Skill Immigration Restrictions on US Firms and Workers: Evidence from a Randomized Lottery
        %D 2022
        %8 2022 Oct
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 15667
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp15667
        %X The U.S. limits work visas for low-skill jobs outside of agriculture, with a binding quota that firms access via a randomized lottery. We evaluate the marginal impact of the quota on firms entering the 2021 H-2B visa lottery using a novel survey and pre-analysis plan. Firms exogenously authorized to employ more immigrants significantly increase production (elasticity +0.16) with no decrease or an increase in U.S. employment (elasticity +0.10, statistically imprecise) across several pre-registered subsamples. The results imply very low substitutability of native for foreign labor in the policy-relevant occupations. Forensic analysis suggests similarly low substitutability of black-market labor.
        %K elasticity
%K firms
%K college
%K high school
%K manual
%K skill
%K mobility
%K labor
%K foreign
%K immigrant
%K immigration
%K substitution
%K productivity
%K rural
%K urban