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Giovanni Peri

University of California, Davis, USA, and IZA, Germany

It is great to be part of this project that fills a critical void. It makes “state of the art” research results accessible to policymakers by presenting and explaining them competently and in plain English. This could significantly improve the quality and focus of policies and of the public debate

IZA World of Labor role

Author, Topic spokesperson

Current position

Professor of Economics, University of California, Davis, USA

Research interest

Economics of international migration, human capital, skills and productivity, labor markets

Website

http://bit.ly/Peri_IZApage

Positions/functions as a policy advisor

Contributed several studies on the effects of immigration policies and several proposals to reform immigration policies (most notably, sponsored by Brookings Institutions); Participated in several projects with the Public Policy Institute of California and with the Migration Policy Institute to research and present to policymakers the analysis of the economic effects of immigrants; Participated in the background research for the OECD Human Development Report, 2009; Coordinated a research group, funded by the World Bank, analyzing the effect of return migration and south–south migration, producing policy prescriptions (2009–2011).

Past positions

Visiting Research Professor, Bocconi University, Milano, Italy; Visiting Professor, UCLA Economics, USA

Qualifications

PhD Economics, University of California, Berkeley, 1998

Selected publications

  • “Immigration, offshoring and American jobs.” American Economic Review 103:5 (2013): 1–39 (with G. I. P. Ottaviano and G. Wright).

  • “Rethinking the effect of immigration on wages.” Journal of the European Economic Association 10:1 (2012): 152–197 (with G. I. P. Ottaviano).

  • “The effect of immigration on productivity: Evidence from U.S. states.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 94:1 (2012): 348–358.

  • “Task specialization, immigration and wages.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1:3 (2009): 135-169 (with C. Sparber).

  • “Identifying human capital externalities: Theory with applications." Review of Economic Studies 73 (April 2006): 381–412 (with A. Ciccone).

article(s)

  • Do immigrant workers depress the wages of native workers?

    Short-term wage effects of immigrants are close to zero—and in the long term immigrants can boost productivity and wages

    Giovanni Peri, May 2014
    Politicians, the media, and the public express concern that immigrants depress wages by competing with native workers, but 30 years of empirical research provide little supporting evidence to this claim. Most studies for industrialized countries have found no effect on wages, on average, and only modest effects on wage differentials between more and less educated immigrant and native workers. Native workers’ wages have been insulated by differences in skills, adjustments in local demand and technology, production expansion, and specialization of native workers as immigration rises.
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