Does Employing Undocumented Workers Give Firms a Competitive Advantage?*

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu Abstract: Using administrative data from the state of Georgia, this paper finds that, on average, across all firms, employing undocumented workers reduces a firm's hazard of exit by 19 percent. The advantage to firms from employing undocumented workers increases as more firms in the industry do so, decreases with the skill level of the firm's workers, increases with the breadth of a firm's market, and increases with the labor intensity of the firm's production process. Terms of use: Documents inJEL classification: J15, C41, J42

Earnings Inequality and Mobility Trends in the United States: Nationally Representative Estimates from Longitudinally Linked Employer-Employee Data

“…For example, moving from the bottom to the top is a relatively rare event, while moving from the bottom to the middle is a common transition. 45 5 Firm Differences in Worker Earnings and Mobility…”

“…The disconnect is likely even greater than it may appear, especially for workers at the very top of the earnings distribution. Most of the workers moving from the bottom 20% to the top 20% and vice-versa have earnings near the minimum value of the top earnings bin, suggesting that most of the transitions may be associated with small earnings changes than one might infer from the average earnings in each bin 45. AppendixFigures E.1-E.3 repeat the analysis shown inFigures 10-12using earnings changes instead of counts.…”

“…The use of SSNs not originally issued to the person using the SSN has been documented and studied byBrown et al (2013) and others.…”

Firm Productivity Differences From Factor Markets

“…Since little is known about the impact of illegal immigration on firm behavior (see Brown et al . [] for a notable exception), and as the ease of obtaining a legal hukou is not independent of education, we control for the regional share of non‐agricultural hukou held by each type of worker without any a priori expectation of sign. Given that rural to urban migration typifies the pattern of structural transformation underway, we control for rural and urban effects for each type of worker below.…”

New Frontiers of Immigration Research: Cities and Firms*

“…Keeping the focus on the effect of immigrants on firms, Brown, Quispe, and Hotchiss (2013) use a unique database on undocumented immigrants (identified as owners of fake social security numbers) matched to firms in Georgia. They analyze whether hiring undocumented workers increases the probability of survival of a firm.…”