中文摘要
我们利用德国的行政数据以及2004年欧盟扩大,将来源地—目的地实际价格差异与移民的保留工资及其职业轨迹联系起来。我们发现,当来自德国的一单位收入在本国能换取更多消费时进入德国的移民,会接受较低的入职工资,但随后会通过转向薪酬更高的职业和企业,追上那些在汇率较不利时抵达的移民。类似的模式也见于美国数据。我们的分析为移民普遍存在的降级现象提供了一种解释,并对移民队列效应与同化轨迹提出了新的启示。
Abstract
We relate origin-destination real price differences to immigrants’ reservation wages and their career trajectories, exploiting administrative data from Germany and the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. We find that immigrants who enter Germany when a unit of earnings from Germany allows for larger consumption at home settle for lower entry wages, but subsequently catch up to those arriving with less favourable exchange rates, through transition to better-paying occupations and firms. Similar patterns hold in the United States data. Our analysis offers one explanation for the widespread phenomenon of immigrants’ downgrading, with new implications for immigrant cohort effects and assimilation profiles.