New Evidence on Emigrant Selection

Jesús Fernández-Huertas Moraga ()

UFAE and IAE Working Papers from Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC)

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.

Keywords: international migration; selection; household survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 O15 J61 D33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-lab and nep-mig
Date: 2008-04-10
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aub:autbar:742.08

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