My Current Research

Job Market Paper

Immigration Policies and Human Capital: The Impact on Undocumented College Attendance

I estimate the impact of Universal E-Verify laws on the college attendance of undocumented Hispanics in the United States. To do so, I implement a series of event studies that account for staggered adoption over time, and I use a random forest algorithm as my primary approach for predicting undocumented status. My results indicate that Universal E-Verify laws lower the college attendance of undocumented Hispanics ages 18–24 by about 3.7 percentage points. This is a substantial effect: only 15.7 percent of undocumented Hispanics ages 18–24 in treated states were enrolled in college following the passage of the laws. This effect is robust to using logical imputation on non-citizen Hispanics to proxy for undocumented immigrants, using a logit model instead of random forest, testing for migration spillover effects on bordering states, and considering potentially confounding impacts of other state-level policies. I develop a theoretical model that explains the mechanisms through which Universal E-Verify affects college education, and I test this model’s implications. I find suggestive evidence that the effect is driven by a negative labor market shock on undocumented adults ages 25–54, which likely leads to worse schooling for their children and renders college less attainable. These findings indicate that employment restrictions targeting working-age undocumented adults hinder the human capital development of undocumented youth.

Works in Progress

Market Structures, Prejudice, and the Residual Wage Gap between Refugees and Natives

I exploit regional variation in Germany to estimate the impact of prejudice, institutional factors, and labor market conditions on the residual refugee-native wage and employment gaps. I first demonstrate that a persistent residual gap exists even several years after refugee entry, and that there exists significant variation by region. Furthermore, the larger residual wage gap compared to previous cohorts is not primarily attributable to increased income inequality: a Juhn, Murphy and Pierce (1993) decomposition indicates that residual price changes account for only a small share of the increased gap compared to prior immigrant cohorts. Much of this gap can be explained by heterogeneous returns to education: highly educated refugees receive substantially lower wage premiums than highly educated natives. I find little evidence that this disparity is caused by prejudice, although I do find evidence that the residual employment gap is significantly smaller in regions with greater occupational upgrading, suggesting that labor market fluidity facilitates refugee integration into the labor market. I also find suggestive evidence that the residual wage gaps may be lower in regions with larger minimum wage bites and greater collective bargaining coverage. These results indicate that labor markets characterized by both greater occupational fluidity and greater wage compression are conducive to reducing refugee-native disparities.

Do Integration Courses Alleviate Refugee Downgrading? Evidence from Germany

I examine the impact of the German for Professional Purposes course on the labor market outcomes and human capital of recent refugees in Germany. I focus on language acquisition, employment, skill level, and wages as my key outcomes. I further investigate how the returns to the course are impacted by anti-refugee prejudice. I also test for spillover effects within refugee households. Estimates indicate that this course has remained an effective tool in improving refugee language acquisition. This finding is in the wake of a 2015 crisis that led to a sudden, unexpected, and large influx of asylum seekers, increased prejudice against refugees, settlement policy changes, and a cohort for which the course was not specifically designed. I find evidence that increased prejudice may lower the return to the course. I fail to find evidence for within-household spillovers. My results imply that professional training and language courses can remain an effective policy tool, even in the event of large unexpected crises and upheaval.

Gender Gaps: International Evidence on the Role of Family Policy

Ongoing project with Francine Blau, Lawrence Kahn, Leonardo Peñaloza-Pacheco, Freddy Bachmann, and Helen Burkhardt.