Immigration stantially in the past few years. Between 1992 and 2009, the fraction of foreignborn population rose from less than 6% to nearly 10.5%, with a steep increase after the European Union enlargement of 2004, as seen in Figure 1. Interestingly — and perhaps differently from many other countries — a large fraction of these immigrants have at least a university degree, as shown by the orange line in the figure.
The economic effects of the upsurge in immigration on the UK labour market have stirred a hot debate. On the one hand, there are those who think that more immigrants harm employment and the wages of UK natives. On the other hand, there are those who believe that immigration brings economic benefits. What does the empirical evidence tell us about the impact of immigration? What can we learn from the UK experience and how can we use this information to provide rigorous information to our policy makers? The purpose of this article is to outline the results of recent studies and to discuss what we need to know, in order to gain a better understanding of whether immigration is a gain or a loss for the UK economy.
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