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Immigrant‐Native Wage Differentials and Immigration Reform
Author(s) -
Bucci Gabriella A.,
Tenorio Rafael
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
review of development economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.531
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1467-9361
pISSN - 1363-6669
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9361.00021
Subject(s) - immigration , wage , immigration reform , economics , labour economics , demographic economics , immigration policy , political science , law
The US Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) increased the monitoring of illegal employment and fined employers who hire undocumented immigrants. Since these provisions tax immigrant wages, it might be expected that the immigrant‐native wage gap would increase after IRCA. This hypothesis is explored by decomposing immigrant‐native wage differentials before and after IRCA. It is found that (i) the immigrant‐native wage gap increased; (ii) in each year most of this gap was due to individual and job characteristics; (iii) the change in the gap is due primarily to overvaluation of native characteristics and to a lesser extent to undervaluation of immigrant characteristics.