Immigration?"
BY: GORDON H. HANSON
University of Michigan
Department of Economics
University of Texas
RAYMOND ROBERTSON
Syracuse University
Department of Economics
ANTONIO SPILIMBERGO
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Research Department
Paper ID: NBER Working Paper No. 7054
Date: March 1999
Contact: GORDON H. HANSON
Email: Mailto:gohanson at umich.edu
Postal: University of Michigan
Department of Economics
611 S. Tappan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
Phone: (734)764-2355
Fax: (734)764-2769
Co-Auth: RAYMOND ROBERTSON
Email: Mailto:rarobert at syr.edu
Postal: Syracuse University
Department of Economics
Syracuse, NY 13244 U.S.A.
Co-Auth: ANTONIO SPILIMBERGO
Email: Mailto:aspilimbergo at imf.org
Postal: International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Research Department
700 19th Street NW
Washington, DC 20431 USA
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ABSTRACT:
In this paper, we examine the impact of government enforcement
of the U.S.-Mexican border on wages in the border regions of the
United States and Mexico. The U.S. Border Patrol polices U.S.
boundaries, seeking to apprehend any individual attempting to
enter the United States illegally. These efforts are
concentrated on the Mexican border, as most illegal immigrants
embark from a Mexican border city and choose a U.S. border state
as their final destination. We examine labor markets in southern
California, southwestern Texas, and Mexican cities on the
U.S.-Mexico border. For each region, we have high-frequency
time-series data on wages and on the number of person hours that
the U.S. Border Patrol spends policing border areas. For a range
of empirical specifications and definitions of regional labor
markets, we find little impact of border enforcement on wages in
U.S. border cities and a moderate negative impact of border
enforcement on wages in Mexican border cities. These findings
are consistent with two hypotheses: (1) border enforcement has a
minimal impact on illegal immigration, or (2) immigration from
Mexico has a minimal impact on wages in U.S. border cities.
JEL Classification: D20, F10