Publication: Performance of Skilled Migrants in the U.S. : A Dynamic Approach
Loading...
Published
2012-07
ISSN
Date
2012-12-11
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The initial occupational placements of male immigrants in the United States labor market vary significantly by country of origin even when education and other individual factors are taken into account. Does the heterogeneity persist over time? Using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses, this paper finds that the performance of migrants from countries with lower initial occupational placement levels improves at a higher rate compared with that of migrants originating from countries with higher initial performance levels. Nevertheless, the magnitude of convergence suggests that full catch-up is unlikely. The impact of country specific attributes on the immigrants' occupational placement occurs mainly through their effect on initial performance and they lose significance when initial occupational levels are controlled for in the estimation.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Neagu, Ileana Cristina; Özden, Çağlar; Mattoo, Aaditya. 2012. Performance of Skilled Migrants in the U.S. : A Dynamic Approach. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 6140. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/11974 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Global Poverty Revisited Using 2021 PPPs and New Data on Consumption(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-05)Recent improvements in survey methodologies have increased measured consumption in many low- and lower-middle-income countries that now collect a more comprehensive measure of household consumption. Faced with such methodological changes, countries have frequently revised upward their national poverty lines to make them appropriate for the new measures of consumption. This in turn affects the World Bank’s global poverty lines when they are periodically revised. The international poverty line, which is based on the typical poverty line in low-income countries, increases by around 40 percent to $3.00 when the more recent national poverty lines as well as the 2021 purchasing power parities are incorporated. The net impact of the changes in international prices, the poverty line, and new survey data (including new data for India) is an increase in global extreme poverty by some 125 million people in 2022, and a significant shift of poverty away from South Asia and toward Sub-Saharan Africa. The changes at higher poverty lines, which are more relevant to middle-income countries, are mixed.Publication The Economic Value of Weather Forecasts: A Quantitative Systematic Literature Review(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-10)This study systematically reviews the literature that quantifies the economic benefits of weather observations and forecasts in four weather-dependent economic sectors: agriculture, energy, transport, and disaster-risk management. The review covers 175 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 policy reports. Findings show that the literature is concentrated in high-income countries and most studies use theoretical models, followed by observational and then experimental research designs. Forecast horizons studied, meteorological variables and services, and monetization techniques vary markedly by sector. Estimated benefits even within specific subsectors span several orders of magnitude and broad uncertainty ranges. An econometric meta-analysis suggests that theoretical studies and studies in richer countries tend to report significantly larger values. Barriers that hinder value realization are identified on both the provider and user sides, with inadequate relevance, weak dissemination, and limited ability to act recurring across sectors. Policy reports rely heavily on back-of-the-envelope or recursive benefit-transfer estimates, rather than on the methods and results of the peer-reviewed literature, revealing a science-to-policy gap. These findings suggest substantial socioeconomic potential of hydrometeorological services around the world, but also knowledge gaps that require more valuation studies focusing on low- and middle-income countries, addressing provider- and user-side barriers and employing rigorous empirical valuation methods to complement and validate theoretical models.Publication The Marshall Plan: Then and Now(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-10-14)This paper is a product of the Development Policy Team, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Geopolitical Risks and Trade(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-23)This paper studies the impact of geopolitical risks on international trade, using the Geopolitical Risk (GPR) index of Caldara and Iacoviello (2022) and an empirical gravity model. The impact of spikes in geopolitical risk on trade is negative, strong, and heterogeneous across sectors. The findings show that increases in geopolitical risk reduce trade by about 30 to 40 percent. These effects are equivalent to an increase of global tariffs of up to 14 percent. Services trade is most vulnerable to geopolitical risks, followed by agriculture, and the impact on manufacturing trade is moderate. These negative effects are partially mitigated by cultural and geographic proximity, as well as by the presence of trade agreements.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Career Placement of Skilled Migrants in the U.S. Labor Market : A Dynamic Approach(2009-04-01)The initial occupational placements of male immigrants in the U.S. labor market vary significantly by country of origin even when education and other factors are taken into account. Does the heterogeneity persist over time? Using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 U.S. Censuses, this study finds that the performance of migrants from countries with lower initial occupational placement levels improves at a higher rate compared with that of migrants originating from countries with higher initial levels. Nevertheless, the magnitude of convergence suggests full catch-up is unlikely. Country specific attributes are found to have less direct impact on the rate of assimilation than on the initial performance.Publication The Wage Effects of Immigration and Emigration(2011-02-01)Immigrants in Rome or Paris are more visible to the public eye than the Italian or French engineers in Silicon Valley, especially when it comes to the debate on the effects of immigration on the employment and wages of natives in high-income countries. This paper argues that such public fears, especially in European countries are misplaced; instead, more concern should be directed towards emigration. Using a new dataset on migration flows by education levels for the period 1990-2000, the results show the following: First, immigration had zero to small positive long-run effect on the average wages of natives, ranging from zero in Italy to +1.7 percent in Australia. Second, emigration had a mild to significant negative long-run effect ranging from zero for the US to -0.8 percent in the UK. Third, over the period 1990-2000, immigration generally improved the income distribution of European countries while emigration worsened it by increasing the wage gap between the high and low skilled natives. These patterns hold true using a range of parameters for the simulations, accounting for the estimates of undocumented immigrants, and correcting for the quality of schooling and/or labor-market downgrading of skills. All results go counter to the popular beliefs about migration, but they are due to the higher skill intensity of both emigration and immigration relative to non-migrants.Publication International Migration, Economic Development and Policy(Washington, DC: World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)This volume reflects the expansion of the World Bank Research Program on International Migration and Development into new substantive and geographic areas. It presents a new global migration database and includes studies of the determinants and impact of return and circular migration, the impact of the flow of ideas on fertility, host country policies and their impact on immigrants, and the impact of international migration and remittances on poverty and other development indicators. The studies cover countries from Latin America, North Africa, South Asia, the South Pacific, and Western Europe, and show that the impact of migration on education and health tends to benefit girls more than boys, that its impact on labor force participation tends to be stronger for women than men, that return migrants tend to do better than non-migrants, and that fertility has tended to decline in countries whose migration has been to the West and has failed to do so in countries whose migration has been to the Gulf. The purpose of the case studies is to illustrate and clarify many theoretical mechanisms and to advance understanding of the impact of different migration policies, given that introducing policy variables in econometric regressions is generally difficult. Each study in this volume aims to answer a variety of development- and policy-related questions using the most appropriate of these three methodologies. These empirical studies and analyses include exploration of some novel hypotheses; they are also new in terms of the topics selected and the regions/ countries examinedPublication Leveraging Migration for Africa : Remittances, Skills, and Investments(World Bank, 2011-04-26)International migration has profound implications for human welfare, and African governments have had only a limited influence on welfare outcomes, for good or ill. Improved efforts to manage migration will require information on the nature and impact of migratory patterns. This book seeks to contribute toward this goal, by reviewing previous research and providing new analyses (including surveys and case studies) as well as by formulating policy recommendations that can improve the migration experience for migrants, origin countries, and destination countries. The book comprises this introduction and summary and four chapters. Chapter one reviews the data on African migration and considers the challenges African governments face in managing migration. Chapter two discusses the importance of remittances, the most tangible link between migration and development; it also identifies policies that can facilitate remittance flows to Africa and increase their development impact. Chapter three analyzes high-skilled emigration and analyzes policies that can limit adverse implications and maximize positive implications for development. Chapter four considers ways in which Africa can leverage its diaspora resources to increase trade, investment, and access to technology.Publication Informing Migration Policies : A Data Primer(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-11)Researchers in many fields, such as demography, economics, and sociology, have established various data collection methodologies and principles to answer a range of academic and policy questions on migration. Although the progress has been impressive, some basic challenges remain. This paper addresses some basic, yet fundamental, questions on identification of international migrants and how their various demographic, personal, and human capital characteristics are captured via different data sources. The critical issues are the construction of proper sampling frames in censuses, registers, and surveys and the design of questionnaires in household, labor market, and other relevant surveys. The paper discusses how these data sources can be used to answer policy questions in areas such as labor markets, education, or poverty. The focus is on how some of the existing shortcomings in availability, quality, and relevance of migration data can be overcome via improvements in data collection methods.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication June 2025 Update to the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP)(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-11)The June 2025 update to the Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP) introduces several important changes to the data underlying the global poverty estimates. The most important change is the adoption of the 2021 Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs). In addition, new data for India has been incorporated and the existing series adjusted for comparability. This document details the changes to underlying data and the methodological reasons behind them. Depending on the availability of recent survey data, global and regional poverty estimates are reported up to 2023, together with nowcasts up to 2025. The PIP database now includes 74 new country-years, bringing the total number of surveys to over 2,400, for 172 economies.Publication At Your Service?(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-09-15)Throughout history, industrialization has been synonymous with development. However, the trend of premature deindustrialization and the spread of automation technologies associated with Industry 4.0 has raised concerns that the development model based on export-led manufacturing seen in East Asia will be harder for hitherto less industrialized countries to replicate in the future. Can services-led development be an alternative? Contrary to conventional wisdom, the features of manufacturing that were considered uniquely conducive for productivity growth - such as international trade, scale economies, inter-sectoral linkages, and innovation - are increasingly shared by the services sector. But services are not monolithic. The twin gains of productivity growth and large-scale job creation for relatively low-skilled workers are less likely to come together in any given services subsector. The promise of services-led development in the future will be strengthened to the extent that technological change reduces the trade-off between productivity and jobs, and growth opportunities in services with potential for high productivity do not depend on a manufacturing base. Considering technological change and linkages between sectors while differentiating across types of services, this book assesses the scope of a services-driven development model and policy directions that maximize its potential.Publication Doing Business 2009 : Comparing Regulation in 181 Economies(Washington, DC : World Bank and Palgave Macmillon, 2008)Doing Business 2009 is the sixth in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 181 economies from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and over time. Regulations affecting 10 stages of the life of a business are measured: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and closing a business. Data in Doing Business 2009 are current as of June 1, 2008. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where, and why. The methodology for the legal rights of lenders and borrowers, part of the getting credit indicators, changed for Doing Business 2009. The paper includes the following headings: overview, starting a business, dealing with construction permits, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and closing a business.Publication Strengthening Competitiveness In Bangladesh—Thematic Assessment(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-07-15)This is volume 2 of a three-volume publication on Bangladesh’s trade prospects. Bangladesh’s ambition is to build on its very solid growth and poverty reduction achievements, and accelerate growth to become a middle income country by 2021, and share prosperity more widely amongst its citizens. This includes one of its greatest development challenges: to provide gainful employment to the over 2 million people that will join the labor force each year over the next decade. Moreover, only 54.1 million of its 94 million working age people are employed. Bangladesh needs to use its labor endowment even more intensively to increase growth and, in turn, to absorb the incoming labor. The Diagnostic Trade Integration Study identifies the following actions centered around four pillars to sustain and accelerate export growth: (1) breaking into new markets through a) better trade logistics to reduce delivery lags ; as world markets become more competitive and newer products demand shorter lead times, to generate new sources of competitiveness and thereby enable market diversification; and b) better exploitation of regional trading opportunities in nearby growing and dynamic markets, especially East and South Asia; (2) breaking into new products through a) more neutral and rational trade policy and taxation and bonded warehouse schemes; b) concerted efforts to spur domestic investment and attract foreign direct investment, to contribute to export promotion and diversification, including by easing the energy and land constraints; and c) strategic development and promotion of services trade; (3) improving worker and consumer welfare by a) improving skills and literacy; b) implementing labor and work safety guidelines; and c) making safety nets more effective in dealing with trade shocks; and (4) building a supportive environment, including a) sustaining sound macroeconomic fundamentals; and b) strengthening the institutional capacity for strategic policy making aimed at the objective of international competitiveness to help bring focus and coherence to the government’s reform efforts. This second volume provides in-depth analysis across seven cross-cutting themes that underpin most of the findings of pillars 1 and 2 above.Publication Vietnam(World Bank, Hanoi, 2020-05-01)Following from Vietnam’s ratification of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in late 2018 and its effectiveness from January 2019, and the European Parliament’s recent approval of the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and its subsequent planned ratification by the National Assembly in May 2020, Vietnam has further demonstrated its determination to be a modern, competitive, open economy. As the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) crisis has clearly shown, diversified markets and supply chains will be key in the future global context to managing the risk of disruptions in trade and in supply chains due to changing trade relationships, climate change, natural disasters, and disease outbreaks. In those regards, Vietnam is in a stronger position than most countries in the region. The benefits of globalization are increasingly being debated and questioned. However, in the case of Vietnam, the benefits have been clear in terms of high and consistent economic growth and a large reduction in poverty levels. As Vietnam moves to ratify and implement a new generation of free trade agreements (FTAs), such as the CPTPP and EVFTA, it is important to clearly demonstrate, in a transparent manner, the economic gains and distributional impacts (such as sectoral and poverty) from joining these FTAs. In the meantime, it is crucial to highlight the legal gaps that must be addressed to ensure that national laws and regulations are in compliance with Vietnam’s obligations under these FTAs. Readiness to implement this new generation of FTAs at both the national and subnational level is important to ensure that the country maximizes the full economic benefits in terms of trade and investment. This report explores the issues of globalization and the integration of Vietnam into the global economy, particularly through implementation of the EVFTA.