Do the Immigration and Minimum Wage Literatures Contradict Each Other? | 2026 Morley Gunderson Lecture

Join us for our 2026 Morley Gunderson Lecture in Industrial Relations and Labour Economics, Do the Immigration and Minimum Wage Literatures Contradict Each Other?, delivered by Magne Mogstad, economist and the Gary S. Becker Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. We will also present the 2026 Morley Gunderson Prize to two deserving alumni, Aileen Coyle and Robin Ross.

This is a free event and all are welcome. Seating is limited, so please ensure you RSVP early to attend in-person. Alternatively, you can attend virtually via livestream.

Abstract | This lecture will re-examine two important, widely cited, but contentious findings in labour economics. The first is that minimum wages have little impact on employment. The second is that immigration has little impact on wages. In textbook models of the labour market, these findings seem to contradict each other, as they would imply that the labour demand curve is both perfectly elastic and inelastic. Professor Mogstad will examine if and how the findings can be reconciled, and derive implications for our understanding of the functioning of labour markets.

Magne Mogstad is the Gary S. Becker Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. His work combines economic theory, statistical methods and micro data to help understand the sources of income inequality, the functioning of the labor market, and the effects of public policy. Mogstad has published extensively in the leading scholarly journals in economics. He was the lead editor of the Journal of Political Economy, a fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of Labor Economists, the International Association of Applied Econometrics, and the Econometric Society, and the recipient of multiple awards such as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize, and the IZA Young Labor Economist award.

The Morley Gunderson Lecture in Industrial Relations and Labour Economics is jointly sponsored by the Centre for Industrial Relations & Human Resources, the Department of Economics, and Woodsworth College. It was established in 2015 in recognition of the interconnections between the three units, and named for Professor Morley Gunderson to honour his contributions to Canadian labour economics and industrial relations over the past five decades.