The Economic Scope and Future of US-India Labor Migration Issues

This paper empirically investigates US-India labor migration and finds that it dominates permanent and temporary employment-based migration to the United States. The true economic value of temporary high-skilled Indian workers in the United States, based on a new visa data based methodology, is estimated to exceed $45 billion in recent years, surpassing the value of US cross-border imports of goods or services from India. The paper analyzes the impact of a potential US immigration reform on US-India bilateral labor migration relations and finds the 2013 Senate Bill S-744 to ease access for Indian individuals to the US labor market, while making it harder for some Indian high-tech firms to operate in the US markets.