The impact of immigration on the greek labor market

Abstract: This paper applies the “spatial correlations” methodology in order to investigate the impact of immigrants on the unemployment rates of natives. We use information on 13 local labor markets for the 1988-2008 period. The data are drawn from the Greek Labor Force Survey. We address the endogeneity of immigrants’ location choices and measurement error by using an instrumental variables methodology. Our results provide empirical evidence that immigrants do not displace the indigenous workers. Also, there is evidence that: (i) medium skilled unemployment declines with immigration and (ii) labor force participation rises due to immigratio