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Intergenerational Transmission of Abilities and Self Selection of Mexican Immigrants

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  • Caponi, Vincenzo

    (CREST)

Abstract

Building on Borjas (1993) I develop an intergenerational model of self-selection of migration and education that allows for a complex selection mechanism. In particular, it allows for the possibility that agents are selected differently depending on the schooling level they choose. As in Mayer (2005) I assume that agents are endowed with two abilities, manual and intellectual, and use the intergenerational structure of the model to infer potential earnings of a person for different levels of education and in different countries. This makes it possible to quantify the self selection bias of estimates of the return to education and migration. The model is estimated using data on Mexicans in the US from the CPS and on Mexicans residents in Mexico from the Mexican census. The findings are that there is a significant loss of human capital faced by immigrants that is not transmitted to their children. While immigrants are observed to earn less because they find it difficult to adapt their skills to the host country, their children earn more because they can inherit all the abilities of their parents, including that part that could not be used for producing earnings. Moreover, in the case of immigrants, parents with larger amounts of intellectual ability migrate more and tend to choose to remain high school educated. However, they migrate with the expectation of their children becoming college educated. Therefore, measures that rely on the earnings performance and educational attainment of immigrants underestimate the amount of human capital they bring into the host country.

Suggested Citation

  • Caponi, Vincenzo, 2006. "Intergenerational Transmission of Abilities and Self Selection of Mexican Immigrants," IZA Discussion Papers 2431, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2431
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    1. Why third generation immigrants earn less
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2009-11-27 21:59:00

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    3. John Gardner, 2020. "Intergenerational altruism in the migration decision calculus: evidence from the African American Great Migration," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 115-154, January.
    4. Biavaschi, Costanza, 2016. "Recovering the counterfactual wage distribution with selective return migration," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 59-80.
    5. Koutchadé, Philippe & Carpentier, Alain & Féménia, Fabienne, 2015. "Empirical modelling of production decisions of heterogeneous farmers with mixed models," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205098, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Koutchade, Philippe & Carpentier, Alain & Femenia, Fabienne, 2015. "Accounting for unobserved heterogeneity in micro-econometric agricultural production models: a random parameter approach," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 212015, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Koutchade, Philippe & Carpentier, Alain & Féménia, Fabienne, 2015. "Empirical modeling of production decisions of heterogeneous farmers with random parameter models," Working Papers 210097, Institut National de la recherche Agronomique (INRA), Departement Sciences Sociales, Agriculture et Alimentation, Espace et Environnement (SAE2).
    8. Jess Benhabib & Boyan Jovanovic, 2012. "Optimal Migration: A World Perspective," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(2), pages 321-348, May.
    9. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Boustan, 2017. "Immigration in American Economic History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1311-1345, December.
    10. Bönke Timm & Neidhöfer Guido, 2018. "Parental Background Matters: Intergenerational Mobility and Assimilation of Italian Immigrants in Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 19(1), pages 1-31, February.
    11. Chakraborty, Tanika & Pandey, Manish, 2021. "Temporary International Migration, Shocks and Informal Insurance: Analysis using panel data," GLO Discussion Paper Series 759, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    12. David Escamilla-Guerrero, 2020. "Revisiting Mexican migration in the Age of Mass Migration: New evidence from individual border crossings," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(4), pages 207-225, October.
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    15. Cristian Bartolucci & Mathis Wagner & Claudia Villosio, 2013. "Who Migrates and Why?," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 333, Collegio Carlo Alberto.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    international migration; human capital; self selection; intergenerational mobility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

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