New evidence on emigrant selection
Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Jesús
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica
Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica

Date: 2008
Description: 59 p.
Abstract: This paper examines the extent to which Mexican emigrants to the United States are negatively selected, that is, have lower skills than individuals who remain in Mexico. Previous studies have been limited by the lack of nationally representative longitudinal data. This one uses a newly available household survey, which identifies emigrants before they leave and allows a direct comparison to non-migrants. I find that, on average, US bound Mexican emigrants from 2000 to 2004 earn a lower wage and have less schooling years than individuals who remain in Mexico, evidence of negative selection. This supports the original hypothesis of Borjas (AER, 1987) and argues against recent findings, notably those of Chiquiar and Hanson (JPE, 2005). The discrepancy with the latter is primarily due to an under-count of unskilled migrants in US sources and secondarily to the omission of unobservables in their methodology.
Rights: Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús de Creative Commons, amb la qual es permet copiar, distribuir i comunicar públicament l'obra sempre que se'n citin l'autor original, la universitat, la unitat i l'institut i no se'n faci cap ús comercial ni obra derivada, tal com queda estipulat en la llicència d'ús Creative Commons
Language: Anglès
Series: Departament d'Economia i d'Història Econòmica. Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica / Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC). Working papers
Series: Working papers ; 742.08
Document: Working paper
Subject: Emigració i immigració



49 p, 979.5 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > Working papers > Fundamentals Unit of the Economic Analysis. Working papers

 Record created 2009-07-15, last modified 2022-07-16



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