About

Giovanni Peri is the C. Bryan Cameron Distinguished Professor in International Economics at the University of California, Davis. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, obtained in 1998, and a Doctoral Degree in Economics from Bocconi University in Milano, earned in 1997. His educational background also includes a Laurea in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University in 1992. Professor Peri's expertise encompasses labor economics, urban economics, and the economics of international migrations. In addition to his appointment in the Department of Economics, he is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and serves as the founding director of the UC Davis Migration Research Cluster. His research focuses on regional and urban economics with a specific emphasis on the economics of international migration, contributing to understanding the labor market effects of migration and refugee movements, as well as the broader implications of migration on development, trade, and productivity.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Labour economics
• Sociology
• Demographic economics
• Computer Science
• Economics
• Economic geography
• Law
• Geography
• Anthropology
• Economic growth

Selected publications

• “Immigration, Search and Redistribution: A Quantitative Assessment of Native Welfare” A Reply

  Journal of the European Economic Association · 2026-04-22

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Stark and Byra (2025) identify a mistake in how capital income is calculated in the supplementary files of Battisti et al. (2018) and point out that our wage bargaining equation does not correspond to the Nash bargaining solution in the presence of wage taxation. We acknowledge both points and thank the authors for pointing out these issues. The bargaining solution we use in Battisti et al. (2018) is the Kalai (1977) proportional bargaining solution with fixed surplus shares, not Nash bargaining. In our reply, we show that if we calibrate the model to wage tax rates, correcting the coding mistake has only a minor effect on our original results if maintaining the original Kalai bargaining. If we also switch to the Nash bargaining solution, the estimated gains from immigration become smaller. Welfare effects depend on the precise nature of bargaining and tend to be larger with Kalai proportional bargaining. Average total welfare gains from immigration are then 0.37% for both low-skilled and high-skilled natives, instead of 1.25% for high-skilled and 1.00% for low-skilled natives in Battisti et al. (2018).

  PublisherDOI

• Pro-Trump Vote and US-Mexico Migration

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• The effect of low-skilled immigration on local productivity and amenities: Learning from the South Korean experience

  Journal of Urban Economics · 2025-01-18 · 4 citations

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• Analyzing political preferences of second-generation immigrants across the rural–urban divide

  Journal of Urban Economics · 2025-02-10 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  This paper analyzes the political preferences of immigrants’ offspring in relation to the rural–urban divide of political preferences in European countries. Using data on individual voting behavior and political preferences in 22 European countries between 2001 and 2017, we analyze whether second-generation immigrants have different preferences on a left–right political spectrum, relative to other natives. We show that they have a significant left-wing preference after controlling for a large set of individual characteristics and origin fixed effects. In spite of their concentration in urban areas, where native residents are also more left-leaning than the average, this difference is not a result of their location, as the difference is particularly strong in non-urban areas. Second-generation immigrants are also more likely to be politically active, to participate in demonstrations or petitions and to exhibit stronger preferences for inequality-reducing government intervention, internationalism and multiculturalism. Growing up with an immigrant father experiencing challenges in his labor market integration seems to be the stronger predictor of the left-wing preference of second-generation.

  PublisherDOI

• Political Polarization and US-Mexico Migration

  AEA Papers and Proceedings · 2025-05-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We study how the US presidential election of 2016 affected the subsequent inflow of Mexican-born immigrants. We use the Matricula Consular de Alta Seguridad data to construct proxies for annual inflows and internal movements of Mexican-born individuals, including undocumented immigrants, across US commuting zones. We find that a 10 percentage point increase in the Republican vote share in a commuting zone reduced inflows by 1.8 percent after the 2016 Trump election. The internal relocation of established Mexican immigrants primarily explains this reduction, though inflows of new immigrants decreased as well.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Data and Code for: Political Polarization and US-Mexico Migration

  ICPSR Data Holdings · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  We study how the US presidential election of 2016 affected the subsequent inflow of Mexican-born immigrants. We use the “Matricula Consular de Alta Seguridad” data to construct proxies for annual inflows and internal movements of Mexican-born individuals, including undocumented immigrants, across US commuting zones. We find that a 10-percentage point increase in the Republican vote share in a commuting zone reduced inflows by 1.8 percent after the 2016 Trump election. The internal relocation of established Mexican immigrants primarily explains this reduction, though inflows of new immigrants decreased as well.

  PublisherDOI

• The Contribution of Foreign Master's Students to US Start-Ups

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Immigration and Firm-Worker Matching

  HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · 2024-08-01 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  International audience

  PublisherDOI

• Forced Migration and Refugees: Policies for Successful Economic and Social Integration

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Forced Migration and Refugees: Policies for Successful Economic and Social Integration

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-03-01 · 9 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  The inflow of refugees and their subsequent integration can be an important challenge for both the refugees themselves and the host society.Policy interventions can improve the lives and economic success of refugees and of their communities.In this paper, we review the socioeconomic integration policy interventions focused on refugees and the evidence surrounding them.We also highlight some interesting topics for future research and stress the need to rigorously evaluate their effectiveness and implications for the successful integration of refugees.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: The Effect of H-1B Workers on the Innovation and Productivity in US Firms

  NSF · $170k · 2015–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Francesc Ortega

  99 shared

• Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano

  Bocconi University

  56 shared

• Chad Sparber

  Colgate University

  51 shared

• Anna Maria Mayda

  Georgetown University

  48 shared

• Andreas Beerli

  ETH Zurich

  46 shared

• Gianluca Orefice

  Université Paris Dauphine-PSL

  39 shared

• Massimo Anelli

  Bocconi University

  38 shared

• Simone Moriconi

  37 shared

Awards & honors

• Steven M. Sheffrin Award for contributions to graduate educa…
• International Prize in Economic Journalism "Gozzo d'Agrento,…
• Nominated IZA Research Fellow (2011)
• Appointed Ifo Research Professor at the Ifo Institute, Munic…
• Nominated International Fellow, Kiel Institute, Germany (201…