What I had in mind were the data from this Pritchett paper. He sets out a range of estimates depending on what exactly you measure. For example he shows that the US wage for construction work is 10x the median of the poorest 30 countries (p. 5). The income gains for a low skill worker moving to the US vary depending on where they’re coming from, but range from 2.4x (Thailand) to 16x (Nigeria) (p. 4).
That’s pretty different than the paper you cite. I’m not sure what accounts for that right now. Hopefully we see more work in this area!
Yeah the discrepancy comes from assuming that immigrants in a category would earn the same as natives in that category. The first problem is that there’s substantial occupational downgrading; immigrants almost always work in lower-paid occupations than their pre-migration occupation. The second problem is that even within the same occupation, immigrants tend to have lower wages than natives (although they also have faster wage growth).
The Hendricks and Schoellman paper, in contrast, focuses on getting immigrants to the US to report their own wages before and after migration—so I think it’s a better reference on the wage gains from migration than comparing average wages.
Interesting, thanks for checking that!
What I had in mind were the data from this Pritchett paper. He sets out a range of estimates depending on what exactly you measure. For example he shows that the US wage for construction work is 10x the median of the poorest 30 countries (p. 5). The income gains for a low skill worker moving to the US vary depending on where they’re coming from, but range from 2.4x (Thailand) to 16x (Nigeria) (p. 4).
That’s pretty different than the paper you cite. I’m not sure what accounts for that right now. Hopefully we see more work in this area!
Yeah the discrepancy comes from assuming that immigrants in a category would earn the same as natives in that category. The first problem is that there’s substantial occupational downgrading; immigrants almost always work in lower-paid occupations than their pre-migration occupation. The second problem is that even within the same occupation, immigrants tend to have lower wages than natives (although they also have faster wage growth).
The Hendricks and Schoellman paper, in contrast, focuses on getting immigrants to the US to report their own wages before and after migration—so I think it’s a better reference on the wage gains from migration than comparing average wages.