As debate over immigration policy continues in the nation’s capital and across the country, research by Colgate professor Chad Sparber and two colleagues continues to add to the dialogue.
In 2013, Sparber began research showing that an increase in H-1B visas — a program for U.S. companies to bring in skilled immigrants — did not harm U.S. workers or the U.S. economy.
In fact, the research found that “inflows of foreign H-1B workers may explain between 30% and 50% of the aggregate productivity growth… that took place in the US between 1990 and 2010.”
Sparber and his research associates — Giovanni Peri and Kevin Shih, both of the University of California, Davis — continue to study the numbers, and released a new report on H-1B visas and their impact on the STEM professions: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the research team found that as immigrants in the STEM professions flocked to a city, the more wages grew for the native-born, college-educated population. Their findings were released this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
“A one percentage point increase in the foreign STEM share of a city’s total employment increased wages of native college-educated labor by about 7-8 percentage points and the wages of non-college educated natives by 3-4 percentage points,” according to the Journal article.
Importantly, their results identify a causal effect of immigration on wages that is distinct from the fact that productive cities will attract more immigrants.
An interactive chart offering a drill-down of the numbers is part of the Journal report. Click on the chart to see how the wages of college-educated students increase in a city with the addition of STEM immigrants with H-1B visas.
Research chart by a team including Chad Sparber was published in the Wall Street Journal.