Productivity of highly skilled immigrants: economists in the postwar period |
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| Authors: | JM McDowell LD Singell Jr |
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| Affiliation: | Department of Economics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-3806, USA Phone: 1 480 965 7109 Fax: 1 480 965 0748 E-mail:;Department of Economics, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1285, USA Phone: 1 541 346 4672 Fax: 1 541 346 1243 E-mail: |
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| Abstract: | Prior work finds declining immigrant quality in the postwar period that is linked to source-country and skill-composition changes associated with the 1965 Immigration Act. This paper uses a unique panel of foreign- and native-born American Economic Association members to show that the highly skilled experienced a similar shift away from European migrants toward those from Asia. However, the findings do not indicate that this change in source-country composition has been accompanied by a decline in quality; rather, the most recent cohorts of foreign-born economists appear to be more productive than their native counterparts. |
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