Can Technology Compensate for a Labor Shortage? Effects of 287(g) Immigration Policies on the U.S. Dairy Industry
利用县级287(g)移民执法政策实施的空间和时间差异作为准实验，研究本地移民劳动力供给减少对美国乳业的影响，发现政策导致农场生产和劳动力支出下降、劳动效率提升，但总产量和农场数量减少，技术改进不足以完全抵消劳动力冲击。
We leverage spatial and temporal variation in the implementation of county‐level 287(g) immigration enforcement policies as a quasi‐experiment to measure the effects of an inward shift in the local immigrant labor supply on U.S. dairy operations. Our findings show that 287(g) policies cause production and labor expenditures per farm to decrease and labor efficiency to increase. The primary dairy operator is more likely to have off‐farm income, and dairies are more likely to use select labor‐saving technologies after 287(g) is implemented. Nevertheless, the number of dairies in operation, total milk production, and average dairy size in the county decline. Our findings indicate that the dairy industry became more labor efficient and technologically advanced as a result of the 287(g) program. However, total production declined. We conclude that technological gains in the dairy industry were insufficient to entirely offset the negative shock to production resulting from an inward shift in labor supply, at least in the short run. These findings are of importance for labor‐intensive industries that could potentially experience an adverse labor supply shock.