Real Exchange Rates and the Earnings of Immigrants

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dustmann, Christian; Ku, Hyejin; Surovtseva, Tetyana
• 署名单位: University of London; University College London; University of London; University College London; New York University; New York University Abu Dhabi
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/uead066
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 271-294
• 关键词: cohort quality; wage growth; LABOR; assimilation; MIGRANTS; IMPACT; POWER; equilibrium; remittances; panel

摘要

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.