The Missing Link: Data on the Demand Side of Labor Markets

Immigration and Labor Market Outcomes in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Sociological Perspectives ◽

10.1177/0731121419892614 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 63 (4) ◽

pp. 630-652

Author(s):

Allen Hyde ◽

Michael Wallace

Keyword(s):

Labor Market ◽

Labor Markets ◽

Labor Market Outcomes ◽

Economic Restructuring ◽

The United States ◽

Earnings Inequality ◽

Demand Side ◽

Least Squares Regression ◽

Market Outcomes ◽

The Relationship

Two broad orientations have motivated scholarship on the relationship between immigration and labor market outcomes in the United States. The first, the supply-side perspective, often focuses on how immigration affects a variety of outcomes such as unemployment, casualization, and earnings inequality. The second, the demand-side perspective, generally contends that these labor market outcomes result mainly from economic restructuring that subsequently attracts immigrants to labor markets. Previous studies have often reached divergent conclusions due to differing assumptions about the direction of causality in these relationships. In this paper, we use three-stage least squares regression, a technique that allows for nonrecursive relationships, to adjudicate the direction of causality between immigration and labor market outcomes. Using 2010 data for 366 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas, we find support for the demand-side perspective, or that economic restructuring results in higher unemployment, casualization, and earnings inequality, which subsequently increases levels of immigration in metropolitan labor markets.

Download Full-text

Getting a Foot in the Door: “Learning,” State Dependence, and the Racial Integration of Firms

The Journal of Economic History ◽

10.1017/s0022050700035713 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 50 (1) ◽

pp. 43-66 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Warren C. Whatley

Keyword(s):

World War I ◽

Labor Markets ◽

State Dependence ◽

Supply Side ◽

Black Workers ◽

Demand Side ◽

World War ◽

Income Differences ◽

Long Term Trends

Economists have emphasized supply-side learning when explaining long-term trends in racial income differences. This article demonstrates that learning also occurred on the demand side. Estimation of a state-dependence model of the sequence of racial employment outcomes of firms in Cincinnati, Ohio, during World War I shows that the introduction of black workers into a previously all-white firm generated new experiences within the firm, altering its future racial employment decisions.This suggests that more research should be done on how firms and labor markets processed information about workers and how that influenced worker opportunities.

Download Full-text