International Migration, Self-Selection, and the Distribution of Wages: Evidence from Mexico and the United States

Chiquiar, Daniel; Hanson, Gordon H.

doi:10.3386/w9242

“…First, the results of Chiquiar and Hanson's (2005) study of the selection of immigrants contradict the theoretical predictions put forward in Borjas (1987), as they showed intermediate to positive selection based on the observable characteristics of Mexican immigrants to the U.S. compared with Mexican stayers in Mexico. By contrast, using only the information provided in the Mexican census about experience in the U.S., Ibarraran and Lubotsky (2007) find negative selection on observable skills.…”

Section: Can-us Bordercontrasting

confidence: 47%

“…This paper thus adopts a semiparametric procedure in the spirit of Heckman (1990) that complements the estimator used by Chiquiar and Hanson (2005), which accounted for selection based on observable traits. Such an estimation strategy provides an alternative to using pre-migration earnings to measure selectivity (see Kaestner and Malamud (2010);Fernandez-Huertas Moraga (2011); Ambrosini and Peri (2012); McKenzie and Rapoport (2010)), as such information is often either unavailable to researchers or the return flow in these surveys is too small to allow suitable analysis (Ambrosini and Peri, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recovering the counterfactual wage distribution with selective return migration

Biavaschi

¹

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 6795 August 2012 ABSTRACT Recovering the Counterfactual Wage Distribution with Selective Return MigrationThis paper explores the distribution of immigrant wages in the absence of return migration from the host country. In particular, it recovers the counterfactual wage distribution if all Mexican immigrants were to settle in the United States and no out-migration of Mexican-born workers occurred. Because migrants self-select in the decision to return, the overarching problem addressed by this study is the use of an estimator that accounts also for selection on unobservables. I adopt a semiparametric procedure that recovers this counterfactual distribution and find that Mexican returnees are middle-to high-wage earners at all levels of educational attainment. The presented results contrast with the general perception that those migrants who return home have failed in the host country.JEL Classification: J61, F22

show abstract

“…Due to reasons of data availability, the second model for the skill structure of immigration flows, given by equation (15), is estimated at the level of Spanish regions (comunidades autónomas). 18 For both models, our sample comprises the 55 most important migrant-sending countries, which are listed in table A.2 in the appendix. 19 …”

Section: Estimation Strategy and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…17 The website is http://www.ine.es. 18 Officially, Spain is divided into 52 provinces which are nested in 19 regions. We exclude the enclaves Ceuta and Melilla due to their specific geographical location.…”

Section: Scale Of Immigration Flowsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Networks and Selection in International Migration to Spain

Neubecker

¹

,

Smolka

²

,

Steinbacher

³

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in University of Tübingen ANNE STEINBACHER ♯ University of Tübingen May 2012Abstract This paper analyzes the role of ethnic communities in shaping the recent immigration boom to Spain. We find that ethnic communities exerted a strong positive effect on the scale and a strong negative effect on the skill structure of this immigration. Unlike previous studies, we explicitly acknowledge similarities among final migration destinations and thus partly relax the independence of irrelevant alternatives assumption. We strengthen our causal interpretation by controlling for observed and unobserved heterogeneity in bilateral migration costs, and by adopting an instrumental variables approach. Our results suggest that previous estimates of the scale effect are upward-biased by approximately 50%.

show abstract

“…Understanding this in the context of an involuntary migration is important because who migrates is not the same as in the case of a voluntary migration. If most members of a particular religious or ethnic group leave from the sending country, the same pattern of skill selection may not occur as under a voluntary migration (Borjas, 1987;Chiquiar and Hanson, 2005). In addition, it is not clear that the occupational choices made by forced migrants will be responsive to market signals in the receiving country.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partition, Migration, and Jute Cultivation in India

Bharadwaj

¹

,

Fenske

²

2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Climate change is expected to displace millions of involuntary migrants in Bangladesh. We draw on history to show that these "environmental refugees" can play a positive role in the regions that receive them by looking at the partition of India. We use an instrumental variables (IV) strategy to show that the migrants played a major role in India's take-up of jute cultivation. Our estimates suggest that migrants fully explain post-Partition jute cultivation. Consistent with migrants bringing jute-specific skills with them, we find that migrants increased jute yields and did not increase the cultivation of other crops.

show abstract

International Migration, Self-Selection, and the Distribution of Wages: Evidence from Mexico and the United States

Cited by 243 publications

References 44 publications

Recovering the counterfactual wage distribution with selective return migration

Recovering the counterfactual wage distribution with selective return migration

Networks and Selection in International Migration to Spain

Partition, Migration, and Jute Cultivation in India

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About