Understanding Firm Responses to Immigration Shocks | WIP Seminar with Xiner Xu

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PhD Candidate, Xiner Xu, studies the effects of immigration on the performance of local firms and their workers leveraging a sharp increase in Canada's immigration targets in 2016. The policy led to an influx of predominantly high-skilled workers and generated unexpected variation in the growth of the foreign-born population across regions and nationalities. Using a novel decomposition of a shift-share instrument, Xu makes comparisons across firms that operate within the same labour market based on differences in worker origins. Firms more affected by the policy accelerated the hiring of recent arrivals who lacked locally accumulated human capital, increased employment and compensation for both immigrant and native workers, and experienced expansions in total output and output per worker. This is consistent with firms benefiting from immigration through pre-exiting ethnic networks, who may identify workers' productivity characteristics that are otherwise overlooked in the labour market.

Bio: Xiner Xu is a doctoral candidate in Economics at the University of Toronto, specializing in applied econometrics and labor economics. Xu's research focuses on business competitiveness and the future of work, particularly in the contexts of immigration and automation. Xu holds a B.A. in Economics and German Studies from Cornell University, and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Chicago.