Comments on

1
Comments on Disadvantaged Minorities,
Immigration, and the Business Cycle, by George
Borjas

• Steven Raphael
• Goldman School of Public Policy
• University of California, Berkeley

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Questions pertaining to recent trends in the
composition of the low-wage workforce

• Do these patterns differ from those observed
  during previous migrations?
• Are there dimensions other than wages where new
  immigrants (and their offspring) perform
  relatively well?

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Differences between these two immigration waves
that carry implications for future socioeconomic
mobility

• National Origin Quotas, 1921 and 1924
• Human capital disparity between immigrants and
  natives is likely larger now than in the past.
• A sizable fraction of current immigrants are here
  illegally.

5
The relative performance of Hispanic immigrants
and native-born Hispanics on several non-wage
outcomes

• Employment
• Incarceration
• Education
• Home ownership

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Questions pertaining to estimates of the effect
of immigrants on the national wage distribution

• Is the percent immigrant an appropriate
  instrument in the underlying structural wage
  regressions?
• Across skills groups, may be correlated with
  declines in complimentary capital investments.
• Across skill groups may be correlated with
  imported labor via the factor content of trade.
• If we were to allow for heterogeneity in the
  elasticity of substitution between capital and
  labor of different skill groups, how would this
  affect the long-term wage simulations?