Senior Seminar in Economics

 Senior Seminar in Economics
Nov 13, 2016
Immigration
Introduction
A description of the issue of immigration will be provided and how it is affecting various economies and social structures in the U.S. Statistics show that immigration is a never ending issue because the world has transformed into diversification. Due to the increased efficiency in transport from one region to another, people can easily migrate to new locations. It has been found that immigration affects an economy's productivity destroys property and affects the hard working citizens whose resources have been used by incoming immigrants. Are there impacts on a country's productivity of the economy and people? Does immigration motivate people or does it demoralize their morale in economic growth and development activities?
The effects of immigration on productivity, employment, and life skill balance have widely been studied.  Despite the facts that studies have reported mixed results on the effect of immigration on native employment, most studies have tended to lean towards the side asserting that immigration scales down opportunities for employment to the native people. In fact, in certain countries like U.S, locals and even some politicians, such as Donald Trump argued that citizens of the country have lost jobs because of the unprecedented rise in undocumented immigrants. 
Background of the issue	
According to Card, (2005) most immigrants had an opportunity to enter in the United States due to requirements of the 1924 immigrant and nationality act. Some of the main immigrants who have settled in the United States due to the act include citizens from Mexico, Vietnam, and the Philippines with all of them having a low education as compared to the natives in the United States. This influx of immigrants is the main reason why there has a high competition in labor market. because immigrants make up 13% of the working age although most of them have had a low education level of high school. Card (2005) assesses the impacts immigration has on the native workers. He does this through the model analysis of economic growth of the local labor markets that tend to receive an influx of immigrants while comparing with those that tend to receive fewer numbers. The main argument put forward by Card is that industries located in cities receiving immigrants are able to incorporate them without lowering the wages. The major finding of Card’s evaluation is that internal immigration of workers is insignificant while that of the employers tend to minimal. 
In the context of education, Card (2005) makes a striking conclusion. For instance, if a first generation immigrant has a schooling totaling 10.4 years, the child will surpass his/her peers in education. For example, in the case where the parent has 5.5 years of education, the child would reach at least 12.2 years of schooling. Despite the large proportion of immigrants streaming in the US who have low education levels, there is an implication in the children’s wage gap; however, Card considers this insignificant. Card arrives at this conclusion through an overview and update of the US immigration literature by focusing on whether immigration in the US harms the labor market of the low skilled natives. Secondly, he continues the review by assessing how the immigrants are performing in the labor market through ‘assimilation.’
From problem to problem
A key problem of migration into the U.S is that it hikes up rents and the value of housing for people. The urban areas in the United States have been major hubs where rent has increased immensely because of immigration. The research study by Saiz (2007) estimates that 1% of the escalation in rental charges within the United States is due to immigration of people. Saiz (2007) continues to argue that the immigration inflow of 1% equivalent to the population of the city provides a huge economic impact since the magnitude tends to be larger than that found in the labor market. The researcher employed instrumental variables which were based on a shift-share of the national levels of immigration into the metropolitan areas to arrive at this result. The researcher chooses to use annual data on legal immigration inflows coupled to Census decennial data that records the foreign-born and the housing rent within the metropolitan area. The data helps the researcher understand the association between immigration and residential decision for the locals. Besides, the research finds out that there are robust effects on both rents and the housing prices in a magnitude bigger than the estimates recorded in the wage literature. The dependent variable in the analysis in yearly change in the log of rent while the independent variable is the inflow of the immigrants in the population. This has significantly affected the labor market because most of the employees are forced to go after better pay to sustain the rental charges (Saiz, 2007). 
Curbing the immigration issue 
	Acco