How Immigrants Affect the UK Natives’ Wages

This paper assesses the effects of immigration on UK natives’ wages. More precisely, it evaluates the impact of the large influxes of workers after the EU enlargement in 2004. It uses a spatial correlation approach and estimates wage effects on aggregate as well as for low-skill and high-skill individuals. No statistically significant impacts were found, either overall or for both skill groups. These findings go against the general idea that immigration resultant from the enlargement deteriorated natives’ wages.