Does Immigration Grease the Wheels of the Labor Market?

STUDIES OF the economic impact of immigration are motivated by the desire to understand how immigrants affect various dimensions of economic status in the population of the host country. This motivation explains the persistent interest in determining whether immigrants "take jobs away" from native workers, as well as the attention paid to measuring the fiscal impact that immigration inevitably has on host countries that offer generous welfare benefits. or the most part, the existing literature overlooks the factor that places immigration issues and the study of labor mobility in general at the core of modern labor economics. The analysis of labor flows, whether within or across countries, is a central ingredient in any discussion of labor market equilibrium. Presumably, workers respond to regional differences in economic opportunities by voting with their feet, and these labor flows improve labor market efficiency.