A new GLO Discussion Paper demonstrates how immigrant men following the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act in the United States have low initial earnings and high earnings growth after all. A re-visit of an influential debate in migration economics.

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GLO Discussion Paper No. 820, 2021

How the Earnings Growth of U.S. Immigrants Was Underestimated – Download PDF
by Duleep, Harriet & Liu, Xingfei & Regets, Mark

GLO Fellows Harriet Orcutt Duleep, Xingfei Liu and Mark Regets

FORTHCOMING: Journal of Population Economics.

Author Abstract: Two radically different descriptions of immigrant earnings trajectories in the U.S. have emerged. One asserts that immigrant men following the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act have low initial earnings and high earnings growth. Another asserts that post-1965 immigrants have low initial earnings and low earnings growth. We describe the methodological issues that create this divide and show that low earnings growth becomes high earnings growth when immigrants are followed from their initial years in the U.S., earnings growth is allowed to vary with entry earnings, and-when following cohorts instead of individuals-sample restrictions commonly used by labor economists are avoided.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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