Immigrant earnings in the Italian labour market

Antonio Accetturo and Luigi Infante

No 695, Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) from Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between individual skills and labour market performance of immigrants residing in Lombardy during the period 2001-2005. We use a recent dataset collected by the NGO ISMU, which includes information on individual characteristics and the legal status of each immigrant. Our results show that returns on schooling are positive and range from 0.8 per cent to 0.9 per cent, a figure that is much lower than the one estimated for native Italians. This result is robust to a number of specifications and tests. In particular, it is not influenced by the legal status of the alien or by a possible self-selection in the labour supply. Moreover, although more talented immigrants tend to self-select in the Lombardy region compared with the other Italian regions, their return on schooling remains low compared with natives. We also show that a certain heterogeneity exists across educational levels and countries of origin: immigrants from Eastern Europe are better able to exploit their human capital, especially when they hold a university degree, while the school-wage profile of Latin Americans and Asians is basically flat. Finally, there is some evidence of a cohort effect in migration, but this tends to impact on the return on experience rather than on the return on schooling.

Keywords: Immigration; return on schooling; return on experience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J31 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-eec, nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Journal Article: Immigrant Earnings in the Italian Labour Market (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_695_08

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