TY - JOUR T1 - Immigration and the Human Capital of Natives JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour SP - 34 LP - 71 DO - 10.3368/jhr.50.1.34 VL - 50 IS - 1 AU - Peter McHenry Y1 - 2015/01/01 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/50/1/34.abstract N2 - Large low-skilled immigration flows influence both the distribution of local school resources and also local relative wages, which exert counterbalancing pressures on the local return to schooling. I use the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS:88) and U.S. Census data to show that low-skilled immigration to an area induces local natives to improve their performance in school, attain more years of schooling, and take jobs that involve communication-intensive tasks for which they (native English speakers) have a comparative advantage. These results point out mechanisms that mitigate the potentially negative effect of immigration on natives’ wages. ER -