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The authors develop a conceptual framework explaining monetary returns to international student mobility (ISM). Based on data from two German graduate panel surveys, they test this framework using growth curve models and OaxacaBlinder decompositions. The results indicate that ISM-experienced graduates enjoy a steeper wage growth after graduation and that they receive higher medium-term wages. This is partly attributable to their favourable self-selection. Under control of selection effects and competency gains from ISM, two mechanisms so far disregarded in the literature explain monetary returns to ISM: the steeper wage growth results from the higher likelihood of ISM-experienced graduates to increase their wage through employer changes. Linked to this, their higher likelihood of working in large and multinational companies explains their medium-term wage advantage. IntroductionIn the past decades, numerous international mobility programmes, such as ERASMUS, have been established in European higher education. Substantial public funds have been invested to this end. This has aroused both political and scientific interest in whether international student mobility (ISM) yields career-related returns for the mobile individuals. Several studies from different European countries have addressed this question and have shown that graduates who spent part of their studies abroad receive higher wages (e.g. Wiers-Jenssen and Try 2005;Messer and Wolter 2007;Teichler 2011;Rodrigues 2013). It is still unclear, however, whether this association reflects a causal effect. If so, which precisely are the causal mechanisms that explain monetary returns to ISM? 1 To answer this research question, we first need to develop a conceptual framework for analysing monetary returns to ISM. We do so by integrating different theoretical approaches that explain how ISM can result in higher wages. On the one hand, our framework incorporates two explanatory mechanisms already discussed in previous research: graduates who spent part of their studies abroad could receive higher wages not because they sojourned abroad, but due to other characteristics leading to higher wages (selection effects). They could also receive higher wages because they acquired specific wage-relevant competencies abroad (competency effects). On the other hand, our framework incorporates two further theoretically plausible, but so far largely disregarded explanatory mechanisms: ISM experience could decrease job search costs and thus increase the likelihood to change the employer and realise wage gains during this process (employer change effects). And finally, the wage advantage of ISM-experienced graduates could be explained by the signalling value of ISM, which should enable an improved access to high-paying, large and multinational companies (company structure effects). By examining these four explanatory mechanisms in an integrated conceptual framework, we wish to provide insights into whether the observed wage advantage is causally attributable to ISM or merely the res...

On the basis of theories of cultural reproduction and rational choice, we examine whether access to study-abroad opportunities is socially selective and whether this pattern changed during educational expansion. We test our hypotheses for Germany by combining student survey data and administrative data on higher education entry rates. We find that studying abroad was socially selective during the entire observation period. Selectivity increased between 1991 and 2003 and hardly changed thereafter. Unexpectedly, the expansion of higher education does not explain this development. We also find that students from a high social background are more likely to choose exclusive types of stays abroad, that is, prolonged stays and stays funded through study-abroad scholarships. Regarding access to scholarships, social inequality increased as studying abroad became less exclusive. High-background students thus seem to replace their prior practices with more exclusive study-abroad practices.

We measure selection among high-skilled emigrants from Germany using predicted earnings. Migrants to less equal countries are positively selected relative to nonmigrants, while migrants to more equal countries are negatively selected, consistent with the prediction in Borjas (1987). Positive selection to less equal countries reflects university quality and grades, and negative selection to more equal countries reflects university subject and gender. Migrants to the United States are highly positively selected and concentrated in STEM fields. Our results highlight the relevance of the Borjas model for high-skilled individuals when credit constraints and ⇤ Matthias Parey: University of Essex and Institute for Fiscal Studies, m.parey@es-sex.ac.uk, Jens Ruhose: Leibniz Universität Hannover, ruhose@wipol.uni-hannover.de,

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