Seminar: Migrant Wages, Human Capital Accumulation and Return Migration

Speaker: Jerome Adda

Jérôme Adda is a Professor of Economics at Bocconi University. He is a managing editor for the Review of Economic Studies. His research interests include Health Economics, Labor Economics and Macroeconomics. His main contributions have been on the effect of public policies on health behavior, the links between income and health, the role of human capital on career choices over the life cycle. Many of his papers have been published in  journals such as the JPE, the AER or the QJE.

Abstract: To assess the implications of the interplay between anticipated migration durations and immigrants’ behavior, we develop a lifecycle model in which immigrants decide labor market participation, consumption, and investment in human capital together with the optimal length of migration. We estimate this model using panel data that provide repeated information on immigrants’ return intentions and realized return migrations. We show that the relation between return intentions and human capital investment leads to behavior-based selective outmigration, and that policies which influence migrants’ return decisions may lead to suboptimal career profiles, inducing welfare losses for both immigrants and the host country’s population.

Paper: [TBD]

Location: 115 Ives Hall

Sponsors: 

• IO Seminar Series
• Public Finance
• Labor Economics