Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/295940 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 16917
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study how random variation in the availability of highly educated, foreign-born workers impacts firm performance and recruitment behavior. We combine two rich data sources: 1) administrative employer-employee matched data from the US Census Bureau; and 2) firmlevel information on the first large-scale H-1B visa lottery in 2007. Using an event-study approach, we find that lottery wins lead to increases in firm hiring of college-educated, immigrant labor along with increases in scale and survival. These effects are stronger for small, skill-intensive, and high-productivity firms that participate in the lottery. We do not find evidence for displacement of native-born, college-educated workers at the firm level, on net. However, this result masks dynamics among more specific subgroups of incumbents that we further elucidate.
Subjects: 
immigration
firm dynamics
productivity
H-1B visa
high-skilled migration
JEL: 
F22
J61
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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