Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/167513 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 6527
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
We present the first evidence that international emigrant selection on education and earnings materializes through occupational skills. Combining novel data from a representative Mexican task survey with rich individual-level worker data, we find that Mexican migrants to the United States have higher manual skills and lower cognitive skills than non-migrants. Conditional on occupational skills, education and earnings no longer predict migration decisions. Differential labor-market returns to occupational skills explain the observed selection pattern and significantly outperform previously used returns-to-skills measures in predicting migration. Results are persistent over time and hold within narrowly defined regional, sectoral, and occupational labor markets.
JEL: 
F22
O15
J61
J24
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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