TY  - JOUR
AU  - Borjas,George J.
TI  - Immigration in High-Skill Labor Markets: The Impact of Foreign Students on the Earnings of Doctorates
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12085
PY  - 2006
Y2  - March 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12085
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12085.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
George J. Borjas
Harvard Kennedy School
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-1393
Fax: 617/495-9532
E-Mail: gborjas@harvard.edu
M1  - published as George J. Borjas. "Immigration in High-Skill Labor Markets: The Impact of Foreign Students on the Earnings of Doctorates," in Richard B. Freeman and Daniel L. Goroff, editors, "Science and Engineering Careers in the United States: An Analysis of Markets and Employment" University of Chicago Press (2009)

AB  - The rapid growth in the number of foreign students enrolled in American universities has transformed the higher education system, particularly at the graduate level. Many of these newly minted doctorates remain in the United States after receiving their doctoral degrees, so that the foreign student influx can have a significant impact in the labor market for high-skill workers. Using data drawn from the Survey of Earned Doctorates and the Survey of Doctoral Recipients, the study shows that a foreign student influx into a particular doctoral field at a particular time had a significant and adverse effect on the earnings of doctorates in that field who graduated at roughly the same time. A 10 percent immigration-induced increase in the supply of doctorates lowers the wage of competing workers by about 3 to 4 percent. About half of this adverse wage effect can be attributed to the increased prevalence of low-pay postdoctoral appointments in fields that have softer labor market conditions because of large-scale immigration.
ER  -