Winning the Visa Lottery

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.