TY  - JOUR
AU  - Borjas,George J.
TI  - Immigrants, Minorities, and Labor Market Competition
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2028
PY  - 1987
Y2  - October 1987
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2028
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2028.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
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  - This paper analyzes the extent of labor market competition among immigrants, minorities and the native population. The study reveals that immigrants tend to be substitutes with some labor market groups, and complements with others. However, all these effects of shifts in immigrant supply on the earnings of native-born men are numerically very small, so that even if immigrants are substitutes with some native-born groups their numerical impact on the native-born wage is trivial. In addition, increases in the supply of immigrants do have a sizable impact on the earnings of immigrants themselves. Increases of 10 percent in the supply of immigrants reduce the immigrant wage by about 10 percent. Thus the main competitors of immigrants in the labor market are other immigrants.
ER  -