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The economic payoff of name Americanization

Author

Listed:
  • Costanza Biavaschi

    (IZA)

  • Corrado Giulietti

    (IZA)

  • Zahra Siddique

    (University of Reading)

Abstract

"We examine the impact of the Americanization of names on the labor market outcomes of migrants. We construct a novel longitudinal data set of naturalization records in which we track a complete sample of migrants who naturalize by 1930. We find that migrants who Americanized their names experienced larger occupational upgrading. Some, such as those who changed to very popular American names like John or William, obtained gains in occupation-based earnings of at least 14%. We show that these estimates are causal effects by using an index of linguistic complexity based on Scrabble points as an instrumental variable that predicts name Americanization. We conclude that the tradeoff between individual identity and labor market success was present since the early making of modern America."

Suggested Citation

  • Costanza Biavaschi & Corrado Giulietti & Zahra Siddique, 2014. "The economic payoff of name Americanization," Working Papers 14009, Economic History Society.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehs:wpaper:14009
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Americanization; names; assimilation; migration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics
    • N32 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

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