KCG Working Paper No. 31: Does Immigration Affect Native Wages? A Meta-Analysis

Authors: Clément Nedoncelle, Léa Marchal, Amandine Aubry, and Jérôme Héricourt

The impact of immigration on native workers’ wages has been a topic of long-standing debate. This meta-analysis reviews 42 studies published between 1987 to 2019, offering a comprehensive as-sessment of reduced-form estimates of the wage effect of immigration. The results confirm that immigration has a negligible effect on native wages. However, a more pronounced wage impact is observable for the U.S. and in recent years. Our analysis underscores the influence of methodolog-ical advances and increased data availability in shaping wage effect estimates. Results also highlight the role of the estimator (OLS vs. IV-2SLS, as well as the use of shift-share instruments) in deter-mining the sign and magnitude of the estimated wage effect.