Immigration Restrictions as Active Labor Market Policy: Evidence from the Mexican Bracero Exclusion
Clemens, M.A.; Lewis, E.G.; Postel, H.M.
American Economic Review 108(6): 1468-1487
2018
ISSN/ISBN: 0002-8282 PMID: 30008480 DOI: 10.1257/aer.20170765Document Number: 330809
An important class of active labor market policy has received little impact evaluation: immigration barriers intended to raise wages and employment by shrinking labor supply. Theories of endogenous technical advance raise the possibility of limited or even perverse impact. We study a natural policy experiment: the exclusion of almost half a million Mexican 'bracero' farm workers from the United States to improve farm labor market conditions. With novel archival data we measure state-level exposure to exclusion, and model the labor-market effect in the absence of technical change. We reject such an effect and fail to reject a null effect.