Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-1-2013
Capstone Advisor
Professor Perry Singleton
Honors Reader
Professor Jeffrey Weinstein
Capstone Major
Economics
Capstone College
Arts and Science
Audio/Visual Component
no
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
no
Honors Categories
Social Sciences
Subject Categories
Economics | Labor Economics
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to use the mass migration toHoustonafter Hurricane Katrina as a natural experiment to estimate the effect of migration on employment (i.e., the effects of being an outsider rather than a native to a certain area). The use of this natural experiment helps control for the usual endogeneity of studying effects of immigration; it is safe to assume away the possibility that the migration was mainly because of higher wages or better employment opportunities, a possibility present in most empirical studies on the subject, which makes it hard to say how the actual migration itself affects employment In addition, this paper explores how these effects differ for whites and nonwhites, as evidence of discrimination in the labor market. I utilize linear probability models for the likelihood of employment, labor force participation, and unemployment based on whether or not the individual was an evacuee from Hurricane Katrina (controlling for other observable characteristics). I find evidence that the migration increased the likelihood of unemployment inHoustonby 6.6 percentage points. When broken down by race, I find that, while the estimation results for white evacuees are not statistically significant, there is strong evidence supporting the idea that nonwhite evacuees were more adversely affected by the migration, having experienced an increase in the probability of unemployment by 12.2 percentage points. This difference is suggestive of statistical discrimination inHouston’s labor market in the years immediately following Hurricane Katrina.
Recommended Citation
Andrade, Joseph Batista IV, "Labor Market Assimilation: Evidence from Hurricane Katrina Evacuees" (2013). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 35.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/35
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
