American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
The Labor Market Impact of Mandated Employment Verification Systems
American Economic Review
vol. 102,
no. 3, May 2012
(pp. 543–48)
Abstract
Employment verification systems covered about one out of four people hired in the United States in 2010. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of state-level employment verification mandates on the employment and wages of likely unauthorized workers across the entire United States between 2004 and 2010. We find that E-Verify mandates, particularly those covering all employers, significantly curtail the employment likelihood of likely unauthorized male and female workers. However, they appear to have mixed effects on wages and may redistribute likely unauthorized labor towards industries often benefiting from specific exclusions, such as agriculture or food services.Citation
Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina, and Cynthia Bansak. 2012. "The Labor Market Impact of Mandated Employment Verification Systems." American Economic Review, 102 (3): 543–48. DOI: 10.1257/aer.102.3.543JEL Classification
- J61 Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
- J68 Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies: Public Policy