The Fiscal Effect of Immigration: Reducing Bias in Influential Estimates

Clemens, Michael A.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3982027

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…Those other economic activities are also taxed, but any such taxes are not considered in accounts of taxes paid directly by refugees themselves. This equates to assuming that the employment of a worker has zero eect on the capital income of rms' owners (Clemens 2021). That is an extreme abstraction in theoretical terms and is strongly contradicted by empirical evidence that hiring migrant workers raises the value of rms' future stream of capital income (e.g.…”

Section: Fiscal Effects Of Refugee Resettlementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The economic and fiscal effects on the United States from reduced numbers of refugees and asylum seekers

Clemens

2022

Oxford Review of Economic Policy

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International migrants who seek protection also participate in the economy. Thus the policy of the United States to drastically reduce refugee and asylum-seeker arrivals from 2017 to 2020 might have substantial and ongoing economic consequences. This paper places conservative bounds on those effects by critically reviewing the research literature. It goes beyond prior estimates by including ripple effects beyond the wages earned or taxes paid directly by migrants. The sharp reduction in US refugee admissions starting in 2017 costs the overall US economy today over $9.1 billion per year ($30,962 per missing refugee per year, on average) and costs public coffers at all levels of government over $2.0 billion per year ($6,844 per missing refugee per year, on average) net of public expenses. Large reductions in the presence of asylum seekers during the same period likewise carry ongoing costs in the billions of dollars per year. These estimates imply that barriers to migrants seeking protection, beyond humanitarian policy concerns, carry substantial economic costs.

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Section: Fiscal Effects Of Refugee Resettlementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The economic and fiscal effects on the United States from reduced numbers of refugees and asylum seekers

Clemens

2022

Oxford Review of Economic Policy

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“…These papers account for the general equilibrium effects of migration and provide a longerterm estimate of its fiscal effects, but the analysis is strongly reliant on the structure imposed by their modelling assumptions. For instance, two recent papers have argued that some such studies underestimate the fiscal contribution of migrants because they ignore the indirect benefits of migration, operating through an increase in high-skilled native wages (Colas & Sachs, 2021), or because they abstract from the increase in revenues from capital taxes generated by higher returns to capital due to migration (Clemens, 2021). Other papers have taken a more data-based but also more static approach.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migration and public finances in the EU

Fiorio

Frattini

Riganti

et al. 2023

Int Tax Public Finance

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We provide novel and comprehensive evidence on the net fiscal contributions of natives and migrants to the governmental budgets of EU countries. We account for income taxes and cash benefits, along with indirect taxes and in-kind benefits, which are often missing in standard datasets. We find that on average, migrants were net contributors to public finances over the period of 2014–2018 in the EU and, moreover, that they contribute approximately €1.5 thousand more per capita each year than natives. We also show that this difference is partly due to the selection on characteristics that make migrants net fiscal contributors, such as demographic factors and employment probability.

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Life Out of the Shadows: the Impacts of Regularization Programs on the Lives of Forced Migrants

Ibáñez,

Moya,

Ortega

et al. 2024

Journal of the European Economic Association

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We examine the well-being effects of a regularization program offered to half a million Venezuelan forced migrants in Colombia. We collected data on more than 2000 such migrants and compared the well-being of those who arrived in Colombia before and after the date that defined program eligibility. Since this date was announced ex-post and was unknown to the public, we could credibly evaluate the program’s impact. We find that program beneficiaries experienced large improvements in well-being, including consumption per capita (a gain of 48%), monthly labor income (an increase of 22%), and health status (an increment of 1.2 standard deviations). These positive outcomes largely stemmed from improved access to services, particularly the social protection system, subsidized healthcare system, and financial services. We also find that the fiscal costs incurred by the Colombian government for a regularized migrant household are lower than those for an irregular migrant household.

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The Fiscal Effect of Immigration: Reducing Bias in Influential Estimates

Cited by 6 publications

References 78 publications

The economic and fiscal effects on the United States from reduced numbers of refugees and asylum seekers

The economic and fiscal effects on the United States from reduced numbers of refugees and asylum seekers

Migration and public finances in the EU

Life Out of the Shadows: the Impacts of Regularization Programs on the Lives of Forced Migrants

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