Working Paper: NBER ID: w23885
Authors: Jongkwan Lee; Giovanni Peri; Vasil Yasenov
Abstract: During the period 1929-34 a campaign forcing the repatriation of Mexicans and Mexican Americans was carried out in the U.S. by states and local authorities. The claim of politicians at the time was that repatriations would reduce local unemployment and give jobs to Americans, alleviating the local effects of the Great Depression. This paper uses this episode to examine the consequences of Mexican repatriations on labor market outcomes of natives. Analyzing 893 cities using full count decennial Census data in the period 1930-40, we find that repatriation of Mexicans was associated with small decreases in native employment and increases in native unemployment. These results are robust to the inclusion of many controls. We then apply an instrumental variable strategy based on the differential size of Mexican communities in 1930, as well as a matching method, to estimate a causal "average treatment effect." Confirming the OLS regressions, the causal estimates do not support the claim that repatriations had any expansionary effects on native employment, but suggest instead that they had no effect on, or possibly depressed, their employment and wages.
Keywords: Mexican Repatriations; Labor Market Outcomes; Great Depression; Native Employment
JEL Codes: J15; J21; J61; N32
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Mexican repatriations (F24) | native employment (J15) |
| Mexican repatriations (F24) | native unemployment (J64) |
| larger repatriation rates (F24) | lower employment growth (J69) |
| larger repatriation rates (F24) | higher unemployment rates among natives (J15) |
| cities with higher repatriation rates (R23) | significant negative effect on native employment growth (J68) |
| Mexican repatriations (F24) | native wages (J15) |