TY  - JOUR
AU  - Berman,Eli
AU  - Lang,Kevin
AU  - Siniver,Erez
TI  - Language-Skill Complementarity: Returns to Immigrant Language Acquisition
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7737
PY  - 2000
Y2  - June 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7737
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7737.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Eli Berman
Department of Economics, 508
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA  92093
Tel: 858/534-2858
Fax: 858/534-7040
E-Mail: elib@ucsd.edu

Kevin Lang
Department of Economics
Boston University
270 Bay State Road
Boston, MA  02215
Tel: 617/353-5694
Fax: 617/353-4001
E-Mail: lang@bu.edu

Erez Siniver
The College of Management Academic Studies
7 Rabin Boulevard
Rishon LeZion 75190, Israel
E-Mail: sinivr@colman.ac.il
AB  - We examine the effect of language acquisition on the growth of immigrants' earnings. We gathered data on recent Soviet immigrants to Israel that include retrospective questions on earnings and language ability on entry into their current job. Language acquisition is found to interact positively with occupation level. Immigrant programmers and computer technicians have a return to tenure about three percentage points higher than that of natives; improved Hebrew language skills account for between 2/3 and 3/4 of that differential wage growth. In contrast, construction workers and gas station attendants have no convergence of wages to those of natives and language acquisition has no discernible effect on their wages. For these less skilled workers the estimated  return' to Hebrew proficiency in the cross-section is entirely due to ability bias. This finding may invite a reinterpretation of other studies on the returns to language acquisition for low wage immigrants.
ER  -