Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

A growing number of localities are adopting more inclusive initiatives aimed to leverage immigrants’ economic and social contributions for local economic development. Among these cities, Global Detroit is a comprehensive effort that encompasses a wide range of initiatives targeted to tap into immigrants’ talent, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit to foster regional job growth and community revitalization since 2010. Much of the local immigration policy research has focused on either bureaucratic versus political incorporation of immigrants (e.g. Lewis & Ramakrishnan, 2007; Jones-Correa, 2008) or the motivation pattern behind local responses to immigrants (e.g. Hopkins, 2010; Ramakrishnan & Wong, 2010). What is lacking is empirical research investigating the demographic and economic impacts of local immigrant-integration efforts and initiatives.

This study provides a direct test of Global Detroit’s impacts on the local community in three areas: migration pattern, local labor market and local business dynamics. I employ the synthetic control method following Abadie, Diamond, and Hainmueller (2010) and Bohn, Lofstrom, and Raphael (2014) to select a group of “untreated” metropolitan regions (donor pool) from which a synthetic control that closely matches the Detroit metropolitan area is constructed. To reduce interpolation biases, the donor pool is limited to metropolitan areas that are also located in the Rust Belt with stagnant immigrant trend and no previous anti- or pro-immigrant policies. I use the pre-treatment trend from 2000 to 2010 to create the synthetic control and the 2012-2014 periods for the post-treatment outcomes. The difference in the outcomes between Detroit and the synthetic control reveals the impact of Global Detroit programs. I also conduct regression-based difference-in-difference estimation where control groups are selected on a more ad hoc basis to compare the results.

The primary data for this analysis include the Decennial Census 2000 and American Community Survey (ACS) one-year samples from 2005 to 2014. This is supplemented with the online H1B annual visa data administrated by the U.S. Department of Labor. The net in-migration of immigrants, including both international and domestic movements, is calculated as a measure of immigrant mobility. In terms of the labor market outcomes of immigrants, I examine the employment rates and wage earnings of the immigrant populations, as well as the size of the foreign labor, indicated by H1B filing. Lastly, for local business activities, I use self-employed immigrants as a proxy for immigrant entrepreneurs. The Global Detroit program is expected to have a positive effect on immigrants’ in-migration tendency while the effects on the other two dimensions may emerge given longer post-treatment periods.