Welfare Effects of Immigration in a Dual Labor Market

The paper analyses the welfare effects of immigration when some sectors of the economy are characterized by wage bargaining between unions and employers. We show that immigration is unambiguously beneficial if the wage elasticity of labor demand in the competitive sectors is smaller than in the unionised sectors. In the opposite case, the welfare effect of immigrat ion is ambiguous; little immigration then reduces the native population's welfare, whereas large scale immigration tends to enhance welfare.