The Occupations and Human Capital of U.S. Immigrants

Todd Schoellman

EERI Research Paper Series from Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels

Abstract: This paper estimates the multi-dimensional human capital endowments of immigrants by characterizing their occupational decisions. This approach allows for estimation of physical skill and cognitive ability endowments, which are difficult to measure directly. Estimation implies that immigrants as a whole are abundant in cognitive ability and scarce in experience/training and communication skills. Counterfactual estimates of the wage impacts of immigration are skewed: the largest gain from preventing immigration is 3.2% higher wages, but the largest loss is 0.3% lower wages. Crowding of immigrants into select occupations plays a minor role in explaining these impacts; occupations’ skill attributes explain the bulk.

Keywords: Human Capital; Migration. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2009
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-hrm, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-neu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.eeri.eu/documents/wp/EERI_RP_2009_19.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Occupations and Human Capital of U.S. Immigrants (2010)
Working Paper: The Occupations and Human Capital of U.S. Immigrants (2009)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eei:rpaper:eeri_rp_2009_19

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