Winning the Visa Lottery

Researchers studying the H-2B visa lottery found that when employers are denied access to low-skill foreign workers, they shrink their businesses rather than hire more American workers, contradicting the assumption that restricting immigration creates domestic jobs. The study, which exploited the randomized nature of the federal visa lottery system, surveyed 472 businesses and used a pre-registered analysis plan to examine the economic effects of restricting low-skill immigration on American firms.