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International Emigrant Selection on Occupational Skills

Author

Listed:
  • Miguel Flores
  • Alexander Patt
  • Jens Ruhose
  • Simon Wiederhold

Abstract

We present the first evidence that international emigrant selection on education and earnings materializes through occupational skills. Combining novel data from a representative Mexican task survey with rich individual-level worker data, we find that Mexican migrants to the United States have higher manual skills and lower cognitive skills than non-migrants. Conditional on occupational skills, education and earnings no longer predict migration decisions. Differential labor-market returns to occupational skills explain the observed selection pattern and significantly outperform previously used returns-to-skills measures in predicting migration. Results are persistent over time and hold within narrowly defined regional, sectoral, and occupational labor markets.

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Handle: RePEc:glh:wpfacu:100
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File URL: https://growthlab.cid.harvard.edu/files/growthlab/files/emigrant_selection_cidwp84.pdf
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More about this item

Keywords

occupational skills; emigrant selection;

JEL classification:

  • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
  • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
  • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
  • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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