TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kaestner,Robert
AU  - Malamud,Ofer
TI  - Self-Selection and International Migration: New Evidence from Mexico
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15765
PY  - 2010
Y2  - February 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15765
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15765.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert Kaestner
Institute of Government and Public Affairs
University of Illinois
815 West Van Buren Street, Suite 525
Chicago, IL  60607
Tel: 312/996-8227
E-Mail: kaestner.robert@gmail.com

Ofer Malamud
Harris School of Public Policy Studies
University of Chicago
1155 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/702-3382
Fax: 773/702-0926
E-Mail: malamud@uchicago.edu
AB  - This paper uses data from the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to examine the patterns of selection of male, Mexican migrants to the United States. We confirm previous findings that Mexican migrants are selected from the middle of the education distribution, but show that there is no evidence for selection of migrants on cognitive ability. We demonstrate that migrants are also selected from the middle of the observed skill distribution, as measured by predicted wages. However, controlling for proxies of the costs of migration, we find substantially less evidence of "intermediate selection" on observed skill. We find little evidence for selection on unobserved skill, with or without controls for the costs of migration. Finally, we show directly that the decision to migrate is highly correlated with differential returns to observable skill and the costs of migration. Overall, these findings are consistent with the predictions of the canonical model of migration.
ER  -