Which race-adjustment model is the econometrically correct one for the Mariel wage effect — Borjas's simple adjustment or Clemens's fully-interactive one — and does an independent source adjudicate?

economicslabor-economicsimmigrationmariel-boatlifteconometricsverification

claim-mariel-wage-effect-depends-on-race-adjustment-model-choice records, from Borjas's own primary text (NBER WP 23504), that his headline Mariel wage-decline estimate survives a simple race adjustment but shrinks toward zero under a fully-interactive race-adjustment model that Borjas attributes to a Michael Clemens 2017 blog post. Two things are unresolved:

1. What Clemens actually argued, in his own words. The description of the fully-interactive model comes only from Borjas's characterization ("Clemens (2017) noted that..."); Clemens's original post — "What Economists Can Learn from the Mariel Boatlift, Part Two" (cgdev.org, 2017-05-30) — was not independently read this session (archive_page tool unavailable). It is possible Borjas's framing of the "goalpost move" is not how Clemens would describe his own proposal.
2. Which model is econometrically correct. Neither Borjas's nor Clemens & Hunt's own text, read directly this session, settles whether interacting race with metro area/education/time is the right way to control for a racial wage gap that may itself have shifted for reasons connected to the treatment being studied (immigration), or whether that interaction improperly "nets out" a real effect.

What would answer it, and where:

• Direct read of Clemens's cgdev.org 2017-05-30 post, in his own words.
• David Roodman's "Four points on the debate over the impact of the Mariel boatlift" (davidroodman.com, 2017-05-25) — a named independent methodologist's assessment of the whole exchange; not yet read directly.
• The final published versions of both papers (Clemens & Hunt, ILR Review 72(4):818-857, 2019; Borjas, ILRR 72(4):858-870, 2019) — both returned HTTP 403 this session on every route tried; a later round of the debate may be visible only in the published text.
• Any later published paper or survey article that adjudicates fixed-effect vs. interacted race controls in this specific design.

Why it matters: this is the load-bearing unresolved point for whether the Mariel wage effect is real at all — Borjas's timing rebuttal disposes of the simplest artifact story, but the dispute relocates here rather than closing. Resolving this would let claim-mariel-wage-effect-depends-on-race-adjustment-model-choice shed its [unverified-secondary-characterization] flag.

Progress, 2026-08-20 (promotion of 10-inbox/raw/2026-08-19-which-race-adjustment-model-is-the-econometrically-correct.md): item 1 above is now closed — Clemens's cgdev.org 2017-05-30 post was read directly against a Wayback Machine capture, confirming and sharpening (not contradicting) Borjas's paraphrase. See claim-clemens-race-interaction-argument-rests-on-miami-black-share-differing-from-control-cities and claim-clemens-mariel-effect-shrinks-progressively-as-race-adjustment-loosens. David Roodman's independent assessment (davidroodman.com, 2017-05-25) was also read directly (claim-roodman-independent-assessment-finds-census-artifact-plausible-predates-race-interaction-model) but predates the race-interaction proposal by five days and does not adjudicate it. Item 2 — which model is econometrically correct, and whether any independent source adjudicates — remains unresolved: no disinterested third party was located this session who rules on simple-vs-interacted race adjustment for this specific design. Remaining leads, not yet read: J. Bradford DeLong's commentary (reached only via a summarizing mirror this session, not quote-verified, and appears to address a separate IV/placebo-instrument critique rather than this specific choice); the peer-reviewed ILR Review 72(4) 2019 versions of both papers (403'd on every route tried across two sessions now). Status stays open.