Migration, Market Power, and Firms - 2026

When firms hold market power over both workers and consumers, migration's effects on welfare look fundamentally different from the canonical labor supply story. I show that migration raises productivity but leaves wages flat, as firms absorb the gain through wider wage markdowns while lower markups redistribute toward consumers. Market power, labor supply, and product demand together govern who wins and loses from migration.

[Draft coming soon]

Presented at: Global Migration Center (University of California - Davis, United States); RFBerlin Migration Forum (ROCKWOOL Foundation - Berlin, Germany); 19th International Conference on Migration and Development (Yonsei University, - Seoul, South Korea); SOLE Annual Meeting (Denver, Colorado); Spring 2026 Midwest Macroeconomics Meeting (Marquette University, - Milwaukee, United States); XXIII RIDGE Forum - LACEA HUMANS Migration Workshop (University of West Indies - Cave Hill, Barbados); 4th Workshop on the Economics of Migration (Universidad Carlos III - Getafe, Spain); IZA@LISER Summer School in Labor Economics 2026 (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research - Remich, Luxembourg); BSE Summer Forum 2026 (Barcelona School of Economics - Barcelona, Spain); 3rd Cornell Economics Alumni Workshop (Cornell University - Ithaca, United States); 2026 European Association of Labour Economists Conference (UB School of Economics and the Barcelona School of Economics - Barcelona, Spain); Designing Politically Sustainable Immigration Policy (University of Notre Dame - Indiana, United States)