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The Determinants of Immigrants’ Skill Composition

Author

Listed:
  • Esra Karapınar Kocağ

    (Department of Social Service and Counselling, Gumushane University, 29100 Gumushane, Turkey)

  • Yutong Li

    (R&D Department, Total Energies Corporate Management, Beijing 100004, China)

  • Cristina Raluca Gh. Popescu

    (Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Business and Administration, University of Bucharest, 030018 Bucharest, Romania
    Department of Economics and Economic Policy, Economics I Doctoral School, Faculty of Theoretical and Applied Economics, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, 010374 Bucharest, Romania)

Abstract

Movements of labor across the world is an ongoing debate in the literature in terms of its drivers and results in sending and receiving areas. Skill composition of immigrant labor has been discussed by several papers, although they generally focused on visa policies or firm level productivity. However, this paper focuses on the relationship between immigrants’ educational attainment and government budgeting on research and development (R&D). Panel data analysis is applied for European countries, along with instrumental variable approach as a robustness check. Findings reveal that higher budget allocation for R&D is associated with higher skill level of immigrants within overall immigrant population. This finding is driven by young immigrants whose ages are between 25 and 34 and female immigrants in these countries, suggesting that this relationship varies among sub-groups of immigrants, which would have significant policy implications. Hence, the novel and original approach of the paper resides in the deciding factors of immigrants’ skill composition.

Suggested Citation

  • Esra Karapınar Kocağ & Yutong Li & Cristina Raluca Gh. Popescu, 2022. "The Determinants of Immigrants’ Skill Composition," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-18, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jjrfmx:v:15:y:2022:i:9:p:391-:d:905559
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giulia BETTIN & Alessia LO TURCO & Daniela MAGGIONI, 2011. "A firm level perspective on migration," Working Papers 360, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
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    5. Britta Glennon, 2020. "How Do Restrictions on High-Skilled Immigration Affect Offshoring? Evidence from the H-1B Program," NBER Working Papers 27538, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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