H-2A Wages and Livestock Farm Labor Demand

This study examines how livestock farm labor demand responds to local wages for native workers and the adverse effect wage rate paid to foreign workers with an H-2A visa. Livestock producers’ demand for domestic labor is elastic, but the demand for H-2A workers is more elastic. This implies that equiproportional increases in all wages will shift relative demand toward domestically sourced—but possibly undocumented—labor. Our analysis also shows that capital and labor are complementary inputs in livestock production, meaning that the use of hired labor increases as farms invest more in capital.