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. 2018 Jun;108(6):1468-1487.
doi: 10.1257/aer.20170765.

Immigration Restrictions as Active Labor Market Policy: Evidence from the Mexican Bracero Exclusion

Michael A Clemens  1 , Ethan G Lewis  2 , Hannah M Postel  3
Affiliations

Immigration Restrictions as Active Labor Market Policy: Evidence from the Mexican Bracero Exclusion

Michael A Clemens et al. Am Econ Rev. 2018 Jun.

Abstract

An important class of active labor market policy has received little impact evaluation: immigration barriers intended to raise wages and employment by shrinking labor supply. Theories of endogenous technical advance raise the possibility of limited or even perverse impact. We study a natural policy experiment: the exclusion of almost half a million Mexican 'bracero' farm workers from the United States to improve farm labor market conditions. With novel archival data we measure state-level exposure to exclusion, and model the labor-market effect in the absence of technical change. We reject such an effect and fail to reject a null effect.

Keywords: F22; J08; J38; J61; barrier; bracero; displace; employment; farm; foreign; immigrant; immigration; labor; mexico; native; restriction; visa; wages; worker.

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Conflict of interest statement

The paper represents the views of the authors alone and not necessarily those of the authors’ employers or funders. The authors declare that they have no relevant or material financial interests that relate to the research described in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The diversification cone [ϕℓ, ϕu] and shutdown margin ϕ̄
Figure 2
Figure 2
Illustration of natural quasi-experiment and core result, states grouped by exposure Note: Average across states, by season, of each outcome. Each year is split into two seasons: the first half of each year is the early season (February to July), the second half of each year is the late season (August to November). The outcomes are (a) peak Mexican fraction of hired seasonal farm workers during any month in the season, and (b) average real hourly wage in the two quarters that comprise that season. Real wage adjusted by national Consumer Price Index. Vertical dotted lines show the beginning of government efforts toward bracero exclusion (March 1962) and near-complete exclusion at the termination of the program (December 1964). High-exposure group is AZ, CA, NE, NM, SD, TX. Low-exposure group is AR, CO, GA, ID, IL, IN, MI, MN, MO, MT, NV, OR, TN, UT, WA, WI, WY. No-exposure group is AL, CT, DE, FL, IA, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MS, NC, ND, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, VA, VT, WV.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Number of seasonal farm workers employed, state averages grouped by exposure Note: Average across states, in each year, of peak-month worker stock of each type. Vertical dotted lines show the beginning of major government efforts toward bracero exclusion (March 1962) and near-complete exclusion at the termination of the program (December 1964).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Semiparametric fixed-effects regressions Note: (a) Baltagi-Li (2002) regression of quarterly state-average wage on ln bracero stock, with state and quarter-by-year fixed effects. (b) Baltagi-Li (2002) regression of monthly stock of ln employed domestic seasonal farm workers on ln bracero stock, with state and month-by-year fixed effects. Both are local linear with Epanechnikov kernel, bandwidth 2 log-points. Dashed lines show 95% confidence interval, clustered by state. Real wage is hourly wage deflated to 1965 US$ by Consumer Price Index.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Peak annual bracero stock and mechanization of the tomato harvest, in the two states with mechanization time series Note: Left axis, total braceros working in state in the peak month of each year (almost always October). ‘Mechanization’ means that tomatoes were harvested with the Blackwelder tomato harvester, reported by Vandermeer (1986). Vertical dotted lines show the beginning (March 1962) and completion (December 1964) of exclusion. There were 74 and 64 braceros in Ohio in the peak month 1956 and 1957, respectively, zero in all other years.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Event study regression coefficients: crop physical production index Note: Observations are state-years. Vertical axis shows event-study regression coefficients from equation (9). For each crop, dependent variable is a production index normalized so that each state’s physical production of the crop in 1964 ≡ 100. Vertical dotted lines show the beginning (March 1962) and completion (December 1964) of exclusion. Cucumbers, citrus truncated at ± 200 identical vertical ranges.
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