It’s All About the Tasks! How Automation Can Increases Firm-Immigration Lobbying

• In Event: Migration: Causes and Consequences

Abstract

Pluralism in the United States is intimately bound up with the issue of immigration. This paper expands on the interplay between the changing nature of technology, its effect on the production needs of domestic firms, and the resulting impact on firm preferences regarding immigration. The paper builds on task-based frameworks developed by economists like Daron Acemoglu and David Autor, which assert that the tasks performed by labor, rather than the skill possessed by labor, are better indicators of what impact adoption and implementation of automated technologies have on firm preferences. Automation may displace, complement, or even generate new demand for labor for a given occupation. By aggregating data from the task to the firm level, we can expect to see a contraction in lobbying for immigration among firms dominated by routine tasks. By contrast, among non-routine firms we should expect that the jump in productivity induced by technology should also increase demand for labor and support for immigration. To test this claim, I will measure lobbying activity of routine and non-routine firms before and after implementation of Executive Order 13769 in 2017 (aka the Muslim Travel Ban). In addition to illustrating the effects of automation on firm immigration preferences, this paper has relevance for the literature that considers domestic political cleavages in international political economy.

Author

• Eric Stein, University of California, Santa Barbara