Immigration and Occupational Downgrading in Colombia

Lebow, Jeremy

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4302536

Cited by 11 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Importantly, these estimates are robust to the two chosen instruments, to alternative definitions of local labor markets, and to different wage datasets. Compared to other studies analyzing this immigration shock in Colombia, my wage estimate lies in between the large negative coefficient of Caruso, Canon, and Mueller (2021) and the more positive or insignificant ones of Morales-Zurita et al (2020) and Lebow (2021a). 4 Compared to other migration episodes, I find a wage estimate that is more negative than several recent papers (Aksu, Erzan, and Kırdar, 2018;Dustmann, Schönberg, and Stuhler, 2017;Monras, 2020) except for the wage estimate of Edo (2020), which is similar in magnitude.…”

Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 48%

“…Last, this paper makes several contributions to the studies that estimate the impact of the Venezuelan immigration on Colombia's labor market (Caruso, Canon, and Mueller, 2021;Lebow, 2021a;Morales-Zurita et al, 2020;Santamaria, 2020;Rozo and Vargas, 2021). To start, I use an event study design with continuous treatment while using two different instruments that can test for the presence of preexisting trends.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Immigration, wages, and employment under informal labor markets

Delgado-Prieto

2024

J Popul Econ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper studies the labor market impacts of Venezuelan immigrants in Colombia. Exploiting spatial variation in exposure, I find a negative effect on native wages driven by the informal sector (where immigrants are concentrated) and a reduction in native employment in the formal sector (where the minimum wage binds for many workers). To explain this asymmetry, I build a model in which firms substitute formal for informal labor in response to lower informal wages. Consistent with the model's predictions, I document that the increase in informality is driven by small firms that use both labor types.

show abstract

Section: Introductioncontrasting

confidence: 48%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Immigration, wages, and employment under informal labor markets

Delgado-Prieto

2024

J Popul Econ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A priori, one could also expect labor market effects to be more severe for younger natives, since migrants are younger on average. However, as shown by Lebow (2022), migrants work in occupations that tend to employ older natives. Thus, it is not surprising that negative wage effects are slightly stronger for older natives, although, again, the differences are insignificant.…”

Section: Primary Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That these wage effects are moderately stronger in metro areas with higher baseline informality rates and lower ease of starting a business indicates that local economic conditions are a determinant of the labor market effects of migration and motivates the formulation of policies to facilitate business formation or encourage migrant relocation according to local economic conditions. The role of migrants' occupational downgrading is explored extensively by Lebow (2022), and the results indicate that migrant downgrading plays an important role in concentrating wage effects among lower-income natives.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While they are consistent in finding negative hourly wage effects concentrated on less-educated natives, they find wildly different magnitudes for those wage effects, ranging from −0.5% to −7.6% in response to a 1 pp increase in the migrant share. 3 I show that the 2 In another paper (Lebow, 2022), I study this same migration wave by estimating a production function with imperfect substitutability between migrants and natives (Ottaviano and Peri, 2012;Manacorda et al, 2012). This entails making explicit assumptions about the structure of production, which allows me to estimate counterfactual wage effects under alternative scenarios, such as one in which migrants do not downgrade.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The labor market effects of Venezuelan migration to Colombia: reconciling conflicting results^†

Lebow

2022

IZA Journal of Development and Migration

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The recent mass migration of Venezuelans to Colombia has become a focal point for economists interested in the labor market effects of migration in developing countries. Existing papers studying this migration wave have consistently found negative effects on the hourly wages of native Colombians, which are most concentrated among less-educated natives working in the informal sector. However, the magnitude and significance of this wage effect varies substantially across papers. I explore the potential specification choices that drive this variation. Differences in how migration is measured are particularly important: exclusion of a subset of migrants from the migration measure, according to characteristics such as time of arrival, amounts to an omitted-variable bias that will tend to inflate the estimated wage effect. In my own analysis based on the total migration rate across 79 metropolitan areas and by using an instrument based on historical migrant locations, I estimate a native hourly wage effect of −1.05% from a 1 percentage point increase in the migrant share or an effect of −0.59% after controlling for regional time trends, alongside little-to-no effect on native employment. Native movements across occupation skill groups and geography are small and do not play a meaningful role in mitigating local wage effects. Wage effects are also larger in cities that have a higher baseline informality rate and lower ease of starting a business.

show abstract