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Journal Article
New from the Richmond Fed’s Regional Matters blog
COVID-19 and Unauthorized Immigration at the Southwest Border
A drop in U.S. enforcement encounters in the spring suggested the pandemic temporarily slowed unauthorized entry attempts, but such encounters have risen in recent months.
The Recent Surge in Immigration and Its Impact on Measured Productivity Growth
The number of recent immigrants to the U.S. varies greatly among data sources. What might an undercount of this population mean for U.S. productivity growth?
STEM Skills among Foreign-born Workers in the U.S.
Census data show that college-educated foreign-born workers have a relatively larger presence in STEM occupations than those born in the U.S.
How Does St. Louis-Area Immigration Differ from National Trends?
Local immigrants with at least a bachelor’s degree are more likely to specialize in the physical sciences than immigrants nationally.
Briefing
Aging and declining populations in northern New England: is there a role for immigration?
In hundreds of communities across northern New England, the population is aging rapidly and becoming smaller. The entire country is aging, but northern New England stands out: Among the populations of all US states, those of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have the top-three highest median ages, respectively. The situation is even more extreme in northern New England?s rural counties, where the populations of the smallest towns generally are substantially older than those of the rest of the region. These communities also have seen the slowest, or even negative, population growth over the ...
Journal Article
Rising Immigration Has Helped Cool an Overheated Labor Market
The United States has experienced a substantial influx of immigrants over the past two years. In 2023, net international migration surpassed its pre-pandemic peak. This flow of immigrant workers has acted as a powerful catalyst in cooling overheated labor markets and tempering wage growth across industries and states.
Working Paper
Getting Schooled: The Role of Universities in Attracting Immigrant Entrepreneurs
We study immigrant founders of venture-capital backed firms using a new and detailed data set that we assemble on the backgrounds of founders. Immigrant founders have been critical to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, accounting for roughly 20% of all venture capital-backed founders over the past 30 years. We document the channels through which immigrant founders arrive in the United States and how those channels have changed over time. Higher education has served as the primary entry channel for immigrant founders. The share of foreign-educated immigrant founders who initially arrive for work ...
Journal Article
Disability, Immigration, and Postpandemic Labor Supply
We study the large labor force increases since 2020 among disabled workers and among foreign-born workers in the United States. We show that the increase in the disabled labor force largely reflects a change in self-reported disability status among those already in the labor force rather than an actual increase in labor supply. We conjecture that immigration will likely contribute more to labor supply in 2024 than it did before the pandemic, but less than in 2020–2023.
Journal Article
Texas economy rides wave of changing technology and diffusion of know-how
Data on patents and employment show that Texas is a major center of innovation and high-tech employment.