PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Peter Brownell
TI  - Employer Sanctions and the Wages of Mexican Immigrants
AID  - 10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.05
DP  - 2017 Jul 01
TA  - RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
PG  - 70--96
VI  - 3
IP  - 4
4099  - http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/3/4/70.short
4100  - http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/3/4/70.full
AB  - Wage differences between authorized and unauthorized Mexican immigrants can be explained by human capital factors prior to the 1986 passage of employer sanctions, which prohibited knowingly hiring unauthorized aliens. However, a significant post-1986 wage differential has been interpreted as employers “passing along” expected costs of sanctions through lower wages for unauthorized immigrants. I test this explanation using administrative data on employer sanctions enforcement, finding employer sanctions enforcement levels are related to Mexican immigrants’ wages but have no statistically significant differential effect based on legal status. Estimated savings to employers due to the pay gap are orders of magnitude larger than actual fines.