Ricerc@Sapienza

This project assesses the effect of the immigration on the production structure in a selection of European countries in 2001-2009. The inflow of immigrants represents an increase in the labor supply, but when we consider skills and abilities of migrants and natives, this increase can be more properly interpreted as a positive change in the relative supply of manual-physical (or simple) tasks. The analysis should test whether the increase in migration stocks has caused a production bias towards sectors that use more intensively simple rather than complex tasks. We consider more thoroughly the case of countries such as Italy and Spain that have been characterized by a more rapid and more intense inflow of migrants with respect to Northern European countries.