The impact of immigration on native wages and employment

Abstract

This paper investigates the immigration impact on native outcomes using microlevel data for France. I find that immigration does not affect the wages of competing natives, but induces adverse employment effects. This finding is consistent with a wage structure that is rigid in France. The quality of the data allows to dig more deeply into the interpretation of the immigration impact. First, I show that immigrants displace native workers because they are more willing to work at lower wages due to lower outside options. Second, I find that natives on short-term contracts, who are less subject to wage rigidities, do experience wage losses due to immigration.