IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ubc/clssrn/clsrn_admin-2009-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Immigrant Wage Assimilation and the Return to Foreign and Host-Country Sources of Human Capital

Author

Listed:
  • Skuterud, Mikal
  • Su, Mingcui

Abstract

We compare predicted relative immigrant wage profiles based on returns to YSM and to foreign and host-country sources of schooling and experience. We find the biases inherent in inferring assimilation from a return to YSM appear more substantial than those emanating from the assumptions necessary to estimate foreign and host-country returns directly using standard data sources. Given the policy relevance of allowing entry effects and subsequent wage growth to depend on the foreign human capital immigrants bring and their post-migration schooling and work decisions, our findings suggest the predominance of YSM models in the literature is not well founded.

Suggested Citation

  • Skuterud, Mikal & Su, Mingcui, 2009. "Immigrant Wage Assimilation and the Return to Foreign and Host-Country Sources of Human Capital," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2009-38, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 26 Jun 2009.
    • Handle: RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2009-38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.clsrn.econ.ubc.ca/workingpapers/CLSRN%20Working%20Paper%20no.%2030%20-%20Skuterud%20and%20Su.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 1994. "The determinants of post-immigration investments in education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 163-177, June.
    2. Shoshana Grossbard (ed.), 2006. "Jacob Mincer A Pioneer of Modern Labor Economics," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-0-387-29175-8, June.
    3. Chiswick, Barry R, 1978. "The Effect of Americanization on the Earnings of Foreign-born Men," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 897-921, October.
    4. George J. Borjas, 2021. "Assimilation, Changes in Cohort Quality, and the Earnings of Immigrants," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 2, pages 3-29, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Per-Anders Edin & Robert J. LaLonde & Olof Aslund, 2000. "Emigration of Immigrants and Measures of Immigrant Assimilation: Evidence from Sweden," Working Papers 0020, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    6. Green, David A. & Worswick, Christopher, 2012. "Immigrant earnings profiles in the presence of human capital investment: Measuring cohort and macro effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 241-259.
    7. Friedberg, Rachel M, 2000. "You Can't Take It with You? Immigrant Assimilation and the Portability of Human Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(2), pages 221-251, April.
    8. Darren Lubotsky, 2007. "Chutes or Ladders? A Longitudinal Analysis of Immigrant Earnings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(5), pages 820-867, October.
    9. Harriet Duleep & Daniel Dowhan, 2002. "Insights from longitudinal data on the earnings growth of U.S. foreign-born men," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 39(3), pages 485-506, August.
    10. Heather Antecol & Peter Kuhn & Stephen J. Trejo, 2006. "Assimilation via Prices or Quantities?: Sources of Immigrant Earnings Growth in Australia, Canada, and the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(4).
    11. Deborah Cobb-Clark & Marie Connolly & Christopher Worswick, 2005. "Post-migration investments in education and job search: a family perspective," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(4), pages 663-690, November.
    12. Barry R. Chiswick & Yew Liang Lee & Paul W. Miller, 2005. "Immigrant Earnings: A Longitudinal Analysis," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(4), pages 485-503, December.
    13. Wei-Yin Hu, 2000. "Immigrant Earnings Assimilation: Estimates from Longitudinal Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 368-372, May.
    14. Derek Hum & Wayne Simpson, 2004. "Reinterpreting the performance of immigrant wages from panel data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 129-147, January.
    15. Frank Tubergen & Herman Werfhorst, 2007. "Postimmigration investments in Education: a Study of Immigrants in the Netherlands," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 44(4), pages 883-898, November.
    16. Bernt Bratsberg & James F. Ragan Jr., 2002. "The Impact of Host-Country Schooling on Earnings: A Study of Male Immigrants in the United States," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(1), pages 63-105.
    17. Khan, Aliya Hashmi, 1997. "Post-migration investment in education by immigrants in the United States," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(Supplemen), pages 285-313.
    18. George J. Borjas, 1982. "The Earnings of Male Hispanic Immigrants in the United States," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 35(3), pages 343-353, April.
    19. Harriet Duleep & Mark Regets, 1997. "Measuring immigrant wage growth using matched CPS files," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(2), pages 239-249, May.
    20. Derek Hum & Wayne Simpson, 2003. "Job-Related Training Activity by Immigrants to Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 29(4), pages 469-489, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Garnett Picot & Patrizio Piraino, 2013. "Immigrant earnings growth: selection bias or real progress?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1510-1536, November.
    2. Christian Dustmann, 2014. "Selective Outmigration and the Estimation of Immigrants Earnings Profiles," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1402, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    3. Dustmann, Christian & Görlach, Joseph-Simon, 2016. "Estimating immigrant earnings profiles when migrations are temporary," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1-8.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mikal Skuterud & Mingcui Su, 2012. "The influence of measurement error and unobserved heterogeneity in estimating immigrant returns to foreign and host-country sources of human capital," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 1109-1141, December.
    2. Dustmann, Christian & Glitz, Albrecht, 2011. "Migration and Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 327-439, Elsevier.
    3. Michael Beenstock & Barry Chiswick & Ari Paltiel, 2010. "Testing the immigrant assimilation hypothesis with longitudinal data," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 7-27, March.
    4. Beenstock, Michael & Chiswick, Barry R. & Paltiel, Ari, 2005. "Endogenous Assimilation and Immigrant Adjustment in Longitudinal Data," IZA Discussion Papers 1840, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Garnett Picot & Patrizio Piraino, 2013. "Immigrant earnings growth: selection bias or real progress?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1510-1536, November.
    6. Robert Breunig & Syed Hasan & Mosfequs Salehin, 2013. "The Immigrant Wage Gap and Assimilation in Australia: Does Unobserved Heterogeneity Matter?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 89(287), pages 490-507, December.
    7. Harriet Duleep & Xingfei Liu & Mark Regets, 2022. "How the earnings growth of US immigrants was underestimated," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 381-407, April.
    8. George J. Borjas, 2021. "The Slowdown in the Economic Assimilation of Immigrants: Aging and Cohort Effects Revisited Again," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 3, pages 31-65, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Hirsch, Boris & Jahn, Elke J. & Toomet, Ott & Hochfellner, Daniela, 2014. "Do better pre-migration skills accelerate immigrants' wage assimilation?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 212-222.
    10. Abdulla, Kanat, 2020. "Human capital accumulation: Evidence from immigrants in low-income countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 951-973.
    11. Merja Kauhanen & Mari Kangasniemi, 2012. "Who leaves and who stays? Outmigration of Estonian immigrants from Finland and its impact on economic assimilation of Estonian immigrants in Finland," Working Papers 282, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    12. Mattoo, Aaditya & Neagu, Ileana Cristina & Özden, Çağlar, 2012. "Performance of skilled migrants in the U.S.: A dynamic approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 829-843.
    13. Banerjee, Rupa & Verma, Anil, 2009. "Determinants and Effects of Post-Migration Education Among New Immigrants in Canada," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2009-20, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 11 Mar 2009.
    14. Dustmann, Christian & Görlach, Joseph-Simon, 2016. "Estimating immigrant earnings profiles when migrations are temporary," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 1-8.
    15. Cristina Fernández & Carolina Ortega, 2008. "Labor market assimilation of immigrants in Spain: employment at the expense of bad job-matches?," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 83-107, June.
    16. Randall Akee & Maggie R. Jones, 2019. "Immigrants’ Earnings Growth and Return Migration from the U.S.: Examining their Determinants using Linked Survey and Administrative Data," NBER Working Papers 25639, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Sanromá, Esteban & Ramos, Raul & Simón, Hipólito, 2009. "Immigrant Wages in the Spanish Labour Market: Does the Origin of Human Capital Matter?," IZA Discussion Papers 4157, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Platt Boustan & Katherine Eriksson, 2014. "A Nation of Immigrants: Assimilation and Economic Outcomes in the Age of Mass Migration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(3), pages 467-506.
    19. Catia Batista & Ana Beatriz Gomes, 2022. "Healthcare assimilation of immigrants," NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series wp2208, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA.
    20. Neeraj Kaushal & Yao Lu & Nicole Denier & Julia Shu-Huah Wang & Stephen J. Trejo, 2016. "Immigrant employment and earnings growth in Canada and the USA: evidence from longitudinal data," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(4), pages 1249-1277, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigrant workers; wage differentials; human capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2009-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Vivian Tran (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.clsrn.econ.ubc.ca/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.