Winning the Visa Lottery
Researchers are using data from the U.S. H-2B visa lottery to better understand the economic impact of low-skill immigration. The study aims to overcome previous data limitations by treating the visa lottery as a randomized clinical trial.
Why it matters
Understanding the labor market effects of low-skill immigration is crucial for shaping effective and evidence-based national immigration policies.
Researchers broadly agree that high-skill immigrants complement native labor. But for low-skill work, the evidence has been less clear, with estimates swinging widely depending on the assumptions made.
In a paper in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , authors Michael A. Clemens and Ethan G. Lewis studied the economic effects of low-skill immigration by exploiting a randomized lottery for visas run by the federal government.
In the United States, the H-2B visa authorizes temporary foreign workers in seasonal jobs, such as landscaping, seafood processing, forestry, and hospitality. Ninety-eight percent of these jobs require no high school education.
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