Giovanni Peri

About

Giovanni Peri is the C. Bryan Cameron Distinguished Professor in International Economics at the University of California, Davis. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, obtained in 1998, and a Doctoral Degree in Economics from Bocconi University in Milano, earned in 1997. His educational background also includes a Laurea in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University in 1992. Professor Peri's expertise encompasses labor economics, urban economics, and the economics of international migrations. In addition to his appointment in the Department of Economics, he is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and serves as the founding director of the UC Davis Migration Research Cluster. His research focuses on regional and urban economics with a specific emphasis on the economics of international migration, contributing to understanding the labor market effects of migration and refugee movements, as well as the broader implications of migration on development, trade, and productivity.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Labour economics
• Sociology
• Demographic economics
• Computer Science
• Economics
• Economic geography
• Law
• Geography
• Anthropology

Selected publications

• The Abolition of Immigration Restrictions and the Performance of Firms and Workers: Evidence from Switzerland

  American Economic Review · 2021 · 160 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  We study a reform that granted European cross-border workers free access to the Swiss labor market and had a stronger effect on regions close to the border. The greater availability of cross-border workers increased foreign employment substantially. Although many cross-border workers were highly educated, wages of highly educated natives increased. The reason is a simultaneous increase in labor demand: the reform increased the size, productivity, and innovation performance of skill-intensive inc…

  DOI

• RETHINKING THE EFFECT OF IMMIGRATION ON WAGES

  World Scientific Studies in International Economics · 2021 · 118 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  This paper calculates the effects of immigration on the wages of native US workers of various skill levels in two steps. In the first step we use labor demand functions to estimate the elasticity of substitution across different groups of workers. Second, we use the underlying production structure and the estimated elasticities to calculate the total wage effects of immigration in the long run. We emphasize that a production function framework is needed to combine own-group effects with cross-gr…

  DOI

• The economic value of cultural diversity: evidence from US cities

  World Scientific Studies in International Economics · 2021 · 86 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  What are the economic consequences to U.S. natives of the growing diversity of American cities? Is their productivity or utility affected by cultural diversity as measured by diversity of countries of birth of U.S. residents? We document in this paper a very robust correlation: US-born citizens living in metropolitan areas where the share of foreign-born increased between 1970 and 1990, experienced a significant increase in their wage and in the rental price of their housing. Such finding is eco…

  DOI

• Comparing the Effects of Policies for the Labor Market Integration of Refugees

  Journal of Labor Economics · 2024-04-01 · 22 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This paper reviews, reanalyzes, and extends to the long run the estimated effects of integration polices on the employment probability and earnings of refugees in Denmark. We first describe the dynamics of labor market outcomes of refugees in Denmark. We then find that increased language training and initial placement in strong labor markets improved refugees’ long-run labor market outcomes, while cutting initial welfare payments and placing refugees near other refugees did not improve them. Pol…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Emigration and Entrepreneurial Drain

  American Economic Journal Applied Economics · 2023-03-29 · 22 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Emigration of young, highly educated individuals may deprive origin countries of entrepreneurs. We identify exogenous variation in emigration from Italy by interacting past diaspora networks and current economic pull factors in destination countries. We find that a 1 standard deviation increase in the emigration rate generates a 4.8 percent decline in firms' creation in the local labor market of origin. An accounting exercise decomposes the estimated effect into four components: subtraction of i…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: The Effect of H-1B Workers on the Innovation and Productivity in US Firms

  NSF · $170k · 2015–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Francesc Ortega

  99 shared

• Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano

  Bocconi University

  56 shared

• Chad Sparber

  Colgate University

  51 shared

• Anna Maria Mayda

  Georgetown University

  48 shared

• Andreas Beerli

  ETH Zurich

  46 shared

• Gianluca Orefice

  Université Paris Dauphine-PSL

  39 shared

• Massimo Anelli

  Bocconi University

  38 shared

• Simone Moriconi

  37 shared

Awards & honors

• Steven M. Sheffrin Award for contributions to graduate educa…
• International Prize in Economic Journalism "Gozzo d'Agrento,…
• Nominated IZA Research Fellow (2011)
• Appointed Ifo Research Professor at the Ifo Institute, Munic…
• Nominated International Fellow, Kiel Institute, Germany (201…

Similar researchers at University of California, Davis

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• Oscar Jordah-54
• Marianne Bitlerh-41