Estimating Immigrant Earnings Profiles when Migrations are Temporary

Christian Dustmann and Joseph-Simon Görlach

No 1609, RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series from Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM)

Abstract: The assumption that all migrations are permanent, which pervaded the early microdata-based research on immigrant career profiles, is not supported by the empirical evidence. Rather, many – if not most – migrations appear to be temporary. In this paper, therefore, we illustrate the estimation challenges when migrations are temporary. As in an overwhelming share of the selective out-migration literature, our basic structure assumes that the process that determines out-migration is unrelated to other choices that affect wage growth, such as human capital investment or labour supply decisions, which greatly simplifies the analysis. When the choice of whether and when to out-migrate also affects decisions that determine wage growth, the problem becomes inherently dynamic and requires a more structural approach to estimation, which we briefly discuss.

Keywords: immigration; return migration; assimilation; earnings profile; selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J15 J31 J61 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Estimating immigrant earnings profiles when migrations are temporary (2016)
Working Paper: Estimating Immigrant Earnings Profiles when Migrations are Temporary (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crm:wpaper:1609

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