Knowing the Facts about Immigration

The research of Professor of Economics Tarek Hassan is shedding light on the truth about immigration and our economy.

In the US, rhetoric about immigrants stealing jobs and hurting the economy goes back more than 100 years.

To find the truth, Hassan and his colleagues examined decades of US migration data to look at the impact of new arrivals on economic growth, wage levels, and innovation, which they measured through the number of new patents filed in a particular area. More new ideas generally mean more new businesses and products: “We find that when you have 10,000 immigrants arriving in a given US county, the number of patents filed per capita in that county dramatically increases, by something like 25%.”

The team also estimated that, since 1965, migration of foreign nationals to the US may have contributed to an additional 5% growth in wages. “More immigrants create more economic growth,” says Hassan. “And because it creates more economic growth locally, it raises the wages of the people who are already there.”

But it’s not a perfect picture. Hassan’s research, published in the American Economic Review, has shown that not everyone benefits the same way from a rush of migration, and that may strike a chord with some of the millions of voters who want to stem the tide. For instance, despite the overall positive effects to a community, the flow of new residents does nothing to boost the wages of existing workers without a high school diploma.

Hassan believes people need to understand the nuanced information regarding immigration. And with his research, he hopes to foster a more informed conversation.