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ImmigrationProf Blog
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New Immigration Articles From SSRN — Including George Borjas’ Latest

By immigrationprof

“Profiling at the Canadian Border: An Economist’s Viewpoint” by DON J. DEVORETZ (Simon Fraser University – Department of Economics, Institute for the Study of Labor) (IZA)

Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=957246

ABSTRACT: Scrutiny at the Canadian border to heighten security and simultaneously reduce type one (false positives) and type two (false negatives) errors utilize substantial resources as well as imposing opportunity costs on Canada in terms of time and trade diversion. One maligned strategy to minimize these costs at the border has been group or racial profiling. This essay develops a pedigree system for Canadian border security which simultaneously reduces both type I and II errors while avoiding the more egregious costs inherent in racial or group profiling.

“Immigration and African-American Employment Opportunities: the Response of Wages, Employment, and Incarceration to Labor Supply Shocks” NBER Working Paper No. W12518, By GEORGE J. BORJAS (Harvard University, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)),JEFFREY GROGGER (University of Chicago – Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and GORDON H. HANSON (University of California, San Diego – Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IRPS), National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) Full Text: http://ssrn.com/abstract=930608

ABSTRACT: The employment rate of black men, and particularly of low-skill black men, fell precipitously from 1960 to 2000. At the same time, the incarceration rate of black men rose markedly. This paper examines the relation between immigration and these trends in black employment and incarceration. Using data drawn from the 1960-2000 U.S. Censuses, we find a strong correlation between immigration, black wages, black employment rates, and black incarceration rates. As immigrants disproportionately increased the supply of workers in a particular skill group, the wage of black workers in that group fell, the employment rate declined, and the incarceration rate rose. Our analysis suggests that a 10-percent immigrant-induced increase in the supply of a particular skill group reduced the black wage by 3.6 percent, lowered the employment rate of black men by 2.4 percentage points, and increased the incarceration rate of blacks by almost a full percentage point.

KJ