Self-Selection and International Migration: New Evidence from Mexico

This paper uses high-quality and previously unused data from the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to examine the selectivity by labor market skill of male migrants to the United States, and how the selectivity of migrants changes as costs and bene…ts of migration change. We con…rm that Mexican migrants are selected from the middle of the education distribution, and present similar evidence of “intermediate”selection on a broader index of labor market skill that combines education, age/experience, and cognitive ability. However, after adjusting for di¤erences in the cost of migration, as measured by plausible proxy variables, we …nd substantially less evidence of intermediate selection on education and the broader index of skill. Finally, we show directly that the decision to migrate is highly correlated with di¤erential returns to skill and the costs of migration. Email: [email protected] and [email protected]. We wish to thank Kerwin Charles, Jesus Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Je¤ Grogger, Bruce Meyer, Stephen Trejo, and Abigail Wozniak, as well as seminar participants at the University of Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Virginia, and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. All errors and opinions are our own.