TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Clemens, Michael A.
AU  - Lewis, Ethan Gatewood
        TI  - The Effect of Low-Skill Immigration Restrictions on US Firms and Workers: Evidence from a Randomized Lottery
        PY  - 2022/Oct/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 15667
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp15667
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - elasticity
KW  - firms
KW  - college
KW  - high school
KW  - manual
KW  - skill
KW  - mobility
KW  - labor
KW  - foreign
KW  - immigrant
KW  - immigration
KW  - substitution
KW  - productivity
KW  - rural
KW  - urban
        ER  -