The Selection of Migrants and Returnees: Evidence from Romania and Implications

Abstract

This paper uses census and survey data to identify the wage earning ability and the selectivity of recent Romanian migrants and returnees. We construct measures of selection across skill groups and estimate the average and the skills-specific premium for migration and return for three typical destinations of Romanian migrants after 1990. We find evidence for a sorting of migrants consistent with skill compensation in destination countries. The premium to return migration increases with migrants' skills and drives the positive selection of returnees. Based on the rationality of these migration decisions, a model of education, migration and return predicts positive long-run effects of increased migration for average skills and wages in Romania.

Brain Drain: Are We Losing Our Minds? A Study on the Romanian Human Capital F(l)ight

“…This model introduced by Lewin also refers to intermediary stages: unfreeze, transition, and refreeze. In a later study, Ambrosini et al (2015) consider that migrants can be assigned to two categories: high-skill cells and lowskill cells. These skill cells are defined by the migrants' level of education, age and gender.…”

Do employers in Myanmar prefer workers who accumulated skills in more advanced countries? Evidence from a field experiment

“…For instance, Ambrosini et al (2011), Wahba (2015), De Coulon and Piracha (2005), and Dustmann and Weiss (2007) find that migrants are positively selected relative to non-migrants. Similarly, in return migration, individuals who choose to return may fundamentally differ on both observed and unobserved characteristics from those who do not return.…”

“…Similarly, in return migration, individuals who choose to return may fundamentally differ on both observed and unobserved characteristics from those who do not return. Indeed, prior studies show that returnees are both negatively (Wahba 2015;De Coulon and Piracha 2005) and positively selected relative to migrants who do not return (Ambrosini et al 2011;Martin and Radu 2012). In addition, when analyzing the effects of return migration, one also has to address the bias associated with returnees self-selecting into specific occupations in home countries.…”

New evidence on the healthy immigrant effect

“…This last …nding is consistent with the theoretical prediction that immigrants from more remote areas are more positively selected to compensate the higher cost of the move (Chiswick, 1999 . 5 The better health at birth of children born to immigrant mothers could compensate the negative e¤ects of other migration penalties related, for instance, to discrimination or the absence of assimilation (Bosch et al 2010). …”

“…5 An important debate in this literature is the existence of nonlinearities in the e¤ect of birth weight. For example, Almond et al (2005) and Royer (2009) …nd that the relationship between birth weight and infant mortality is strongest for the lower birth weight births.…”