Publications

The UK's New Europeans: Progress and Challenges Five Years After Accession
The enlargement of the European Union has fundamentally changed migration patterns to the United Kingdom. An estimated 1.5 million workers have come to the United Kingdom from new EU Member States since May 2004, accounting for about half of all labor migration during that period. Though employment rates for these new European citizens are high, areas of concern remain because their wages are low and the workers, often despite significant education, are concentrated in unskilled labor sectors. This report, commissioned by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, also concludes that the influx of workers may be having a slight negative impact on the wages of the lowest-paid British workers.
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The Economics and Policy of Illegal Immigration in the United States
By Gordon H. Hanson
Illegal immigration's overall impact on the US economy is negligible, despite clear benefits for employers and unauthorized immigrants and slightly depressed wages for low-skilled native workers, according to this report by University of California, San Diego Professor of Economics Gordon Hanson for MPI's Labor Markets Initiative. The largest economic gains from illegal immigration flow to unauthorized workers, who see very substantial income hikes after migrating, Hanson says, suggesting that policy changes could increase the positive contribution that low-skilled workers make to the US economy by converting illegal flows to legal ones.
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Tied to the Business Cycle: How Immigrants Fare in Good and Bad Economic Times
By Pia M. Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny
Immigrants surpassed native-born workers in several key labor market outcomes from the mid-1990s through 2007, recording higher employment and lower jobless rates — but the trend was reversed with the onset of the current recession. The report, which analyzes employment and unemployment patterns over the past 15 years and two recessions, shows that immigrant economic outcomes began deteriorating before the current recession officially began in December 2007, tracing immigrants' declining fortunes largely to the housing bust which began in spring 2006.
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Migration and the Global Recession
By Michael Fix, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Jeanne Batalova, Aaron Terrazas, Serena Yi-Ying Lin, and Michelle Mittelstadt
The global financial crisis that began in September 2008 can be viewed as having a deeper and more global effect on the movement of people around the world than any other economic downturn in the post-World War II era of migration, finds a new MPI report commissioned by the BBC World Service. The report explores how the recession has affected the movement of some of the world's more than 195 million migrants and their remittances in locations around the globe. It provides data on migration, remittances, employment, and poverty rates for immigrants and the native-born alike; and examines the policy changes some countries have enacted to suppress migrant inflows, encourage departures (including through recent "pay-to-go" plans), and protect labor markets for native-born workers.
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Aligning Temporary Immigration Visas with US Labor Market Needs: The Case for Provisional Visas
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Doris Meissner, Marc R. Rosenblum, and Madeleine Sumption
Reform of a rigid employment-based visa system that is out of sync with the needs of employers, the US economy, US society, and immigrants alike must be part of effective comprehensive immigration reform legislation. In this report, MPI recommends creation of a new stream of visas known as provisional visas, which would bridge temporary and permanent admissions to the United States for work purposes in a predictable and transparent way. The authors make the case that the concept hits the sweet spot in balancing the two main goals of labor market immigration policy: It supports economic growth and competitiveness while protecting the wages and interests of US workers; and it facilitates the social and economic integration of immigrants.
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Harnessing the Advantages of Immigration for a 21st-Century Economy
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Doris Meissner, Marc R. Rosenblum, and Madeleine Sumption
The US immigration system neither meets labor market needs efficiently nor minds the interests of US workers with particular success, and has yet to devise a way that uses immigration to promote US economic growth and competitiveness well. This paper proposes an institutional solution to address this systemic failure: Creating a permanent and independent body, situated within the executive branch, that is charged with recommending adjustments to immigration laws to the president and Congress: the Standing Commission on Labor Markets, Economic Competitiveness, and Immigration. The bipartisan panel would provide timely, evidence-based, and impartial analysis and recommendations to the president and Congress regarding employment-based immigration.
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Immigrants and the Current Economic Crisis
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Aaron Terrazas
As the nation sinks into a recession that may be the worst since the Great Depression, the economic crisis raises fundamental questions about future immigration flows to and from the United States and how current and prospective immigrants will fare. This report, a research product of MPI's new Labor Markets Initiative, examines how the number of immigrants has changed since the recession began; how legal and illegal immigration flows may change; and how immigrants fare in the labor market during downturns.
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More on the Labor Markets Initiative here

Immigration in the United Kingdom: The Recession and Beyond
By Will Somerville and Madeleine Sumption
Will the recession reduce immigrant inflows to the United Kingdom and encourage return migration as immigrants find it more difficult to get jobs? There is already evidence that Eastern European workers are arriving in significantly smaller numbers. Still, the report makes clear that immigration will by no means cease during the recession in part because the downturn also is affecting immigrant-source countries and because migration decisions are not governed solely by economic concerns.
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Immigration and the Labor Market: Theory, Evidence, and Policy
By Will Somerville and Madeleine Sumption
With the current economic downturn leading to questions over the value of economic migration, this report examines labor-market conditions in the United Kingdom. While there is consensus among economic researchers that immigration has only a small impact on the average wages of all workers, the report suggests that policymakers cannot ignore immigrants' role in the labor market. Interventions to assist low-skilled workers, integration policies, and employer-sponsored training are essential tools to mitigate real and perceived effects of immigration.
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Migration and the Economic Downturn: What to Expect in the European Union
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Madeleine Sumption, and Will Somerville
As unemployment rises and household budgets shrink across the European Union, policymakers, analysts, and the public are beginning to ask what the consequences will be with respect to immigration. The implications of the recession should not be underestimated. The downturn is likely to affect the kind of immigrants that arrive and leave, with implications for labor supply in certain sectors, for integration, and for the host communities.
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Uneven Progress: The Employment Pathways of Skilled Immigrants in the United States
By Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix with Peter A. Creticos
More than 1.3 million college-educated immigrants in the United States are unemployed or working in unskilled jobs because they are unable to make full use of their academic and professional credentials, MPI reports in the first assessment yet of the scope of the "brain waste" problem. The report analyzes and offers possible solutions for the credentialing and language-barrier hurdles that deprive the US economy of a rich source of human capital at a time of increasing competition globally for skilled talent.
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