Do Interest Groups Affect U.S. Immigration Policy?
IMF Working Papers, October 1, 2008
Source details
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- Do Interest Groups Affect U.S. Immigration Policy?
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Bibliographic details
- Authors: Prachi Mishra, Giovanni Facchini, Anna Maria Mayda
- Published: October 1, 2008
- Series: IMF Working Papers
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781451871029.001
Research question and scope
- Investigates whether interest groups play a systematic role in shaping U.S. immigration policy.
- Constructs an industry-level dataset for the United States by combining information on the number of temporary work visas with data on lobbying activity associated with immigration.
- Focus on sectoral variation in migration outcomes and the political economy determinants of barriers to migration.
Data and methodology
- Industry-level dataset linking:
- number of temporary work visas (by sector)
- lobbying activity associated with immigration (by sector)
- Empirical strategy examines how variation in lobbying expenditures and union importance across sectors relates to migration outcomes.
- Pages: 56
- Volume: 2008
- Issue: 244
- Series: Working Paper No. 2008/244
Key findings
- "We find robust evidence that both pro- and anti-immigration interest groups play a statistically significant and economically relevant role in shaping migration across sectors."
- Barriers to migration are lower in sectors in which business interest groups incur larger lobby expenditures.
- Barriers to migration are higher in sectors where labor unions are more important.
Policy-relevant implications
- Interest group activity (both pro- and anti-immigration) can materially influence sectoral migration outcomes.
- Policymakers should consider the asymmetric influence of business lobbying and labor union strength when assessing sectoral migration policies and labor market adjustments.
- Recognizing the political economy drivers can inform design of immigration policies that better align with labor market needs across sectors.