TY  - JOUR
AU  - Aydemir,Abdurrahman
AU  - Borjas,George J.
TI  - Attenuation Bias in Measuring the Wage Impact of Immigration
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 16229
PY  - 2010
Y2  - July 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16229
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16229.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Abdurrahman Aydemir
Sabanci University
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Istanbul, Turkey
E-Mail: aaydemir@sabanciuniv.edu

George J. Borjas
Harvard Kennedy School
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-1393
Fax: 617/495-9532
E-Mail: gborjas@harvard.edu
AB  - Although economic theory predicts an inverse relation between relative wages and immigration-induced supply shifts, it has been difficult to document such effects. The weak evidence may be partly due to sampling error in a commonly used measure of the supply shift, the immigrant share of the workforce. After controlling for permanent factors that determine wages in specific labor markets, little variation remains in the immigrant share. We find significant sampling error in this measure of supply shifts in Canadian and U.S. Census data. Correcting for the resulting attenuation bias can substantially increase existing estimates of the wage impact of immigration.
ER  -