The impact of immigration on the geographic mobility of New Zealanders

Abstract

We use data from the New Zealand Census to examine how the arrival of new migrants affects the geographic mobility of the New Zealand (NZ)-born and earlier migrants. We identify the impact of recent migration by exploiting the fact that immigration is spatially concentrated, and therefore a change in the local supply of migrants in a particular skill-group should have an impact on the mobility of similarly skilled non-migrants in that local labour market. Overall, our results provide little support for the hypothesis that migrant inflows displace either the NZ-born or earlier migrants with similar skills in the areas that new migrants are settling.