Recovering the counterfactual wage distribution with selective return migration

Costanza Biavaschi

Labour Economics, 2016, vol. 38, issue C, 59-80

Abstract: This paper recovers the distribution of wages for Mexican-born workers living in the U.S. if no return migration of Mexican-born workers occurred. Because migrants self-select in the decision to return, the overarching problem addressed by this study is the use of an estimator that also accounts for selection on unobservables. I find that Mexican returnees are middle- to high-wage earners at all levels of educational attainment. Taking into account self-selection in return migration, wages would be approximately 7.7% higher at the median and 4.5% higher at the mean. Owing to positive self-selection, the immigrant-native wage gap would, therefore, partially close if there was no return migration.

Keywords: Return migration; Self-selection; Assimilation; U.S.–Mexico migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Recovering the Counterfactual Wage Distribution with Selective Return Migration (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:38:y:2016:i:c:p:59-80

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2015.12.001

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