Immigration and the Education of US-Born Children | Economics, Applied | Steven Davis, David Figlio, and Paola Sapienza| Hoover Institution

Many parents – indeed, many Americans – worry that immigrant children in the classroom could detract from the quality of schooling received by U.S.-born children. It’s a reasonable concern. Today’s episode considers new evidence on how more vs. less exposure to immigrant students affects the educational performance of U.S.-born children, drawing on rich data for students at public schools in Florida.  

Recorded on January 22, 2025. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

David Figlio is the Gordon Fyfe Professor of Economics and Education at the University of Rochester and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He studies school accountability, the link between health and education, social welfare policies, and the academic profession. He collaborates frequently with state and local health and education agencies, and recently led a National Science Foundation-sponsored network to facilitate the use of matched administrative datasets to inform and evaluate education policy. He was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2017.

Paola Sapienza is the J-P Conte Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where she co-directs the J-P Conte Initiative on Immigration. She is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research affiliate of the Center for Economic Policy Research, and a fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute. Her main research focuses on the impact of cultural norms on economic decisions and outcomes. She applies these concepts to financial development, political economy, and education. Her work in education investigates how vertical and horizontal cultural transmission of preferences may affect educational outcomes.

Steven Davis is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the Hoover Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). He is a research associate of the NBER, IZA research fellow, elected fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, and consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He co-founded the Economic Policy Uncertainty project, the U.S. Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, the Global Survey of Working Arrangements, the Survey of Business Uncertainty, and the Stock Market Jumps project. He also co-organizes the Asian Monetary Policy Forum, held annually in Singapore. Before joining Hoover, Davis was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, serving as both distinguished service professor and deputy dean of the faculty.

RELATED RESOURCES:

• Diversity in schools: Immigrants and the educational performance of US-born students, Review of economic Studies, 2024.
• Family disadvantage and the gender gap in behavioral and educational outcomes, American Economc Journal: Applied Economics, 2019.
• Long-term orientation and educational performance, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2019.
• J-P Conte Initiative on Immigration