A significant share of college-educated workers in developed countries are immigrants, many of whom contribute to science and engineering fields.
My research shows that taking higher education abroad is a key pathway for high-skilled migrants.
I investigate the factors shaping high-skilled migration and international student mobility (such as visa policies and political shocks) and assess their broader impacts on host countries.
Working Papers
The Effects of High-Skill Immigration on Choice of College Major, Occupation, and Earnings
Among college-educated workers in the United States, the ratio of immigrants grew by 11 percentage points between 1960 and 2010, with a prevalence in science and engineering (SE) occupations. To analyze the impact of college-educated immigrants, I build and estimate an equilibrium model of labor markets, involving individuals’ post-secondary degree and occupation choices. Counterfactual simulations show that if the entry of college-educated immigrants was halted in 1960, the population of native-born students obtaining SE degrees and native SE employment would have increased between 4.6% and 9.0%. However, the earnings of natives would have differed only slightly in each occupation because changes in occupation choice, the aggregate capital, and low-skilled labor would have curtailed potential gains in earnings. When the impact of the declining total SE employment due to the absence of immigrants on productivity is accounted for, the average earnings of native-born college graduates would have declined by 1.3%.
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Publications
Youth Responses to Political Populism: Education Abroad as a Step toward Emigration (Journal of Comparative Economics, 2023)
(EAF Discussion Paper No 2123)
Populism is on the rise, and democratic rights are deteriorating in many countries as a result of authoritarian policies adopted by populist leaders. This study analyzes how rising political populism in developing countries affects whether their citizens pursue higher education abroad. Applying the Synthetic Control Method, student migration patterns from Hungary, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Indonesia are explored as cases constituting early examples of authoritarian populism. The estimates show that the rise of authoritarianism after the closely contested elections that result in favor of the populist leaders in these countries increases the number of citizens who attend universities in foreign countries. Finding limited evidence for worsening higher education options in the origin countries suggests that more students start pursuing foreign education to increase their chances of living abroad after graduation. The emigration of skilled citizens from developing countries as a consequence of political populism is likely to constitute a threat to the economic performance of these countries in the long term.
International Students and Labour Market Outcomes of US-born Workers (Canadian Journal of Economics, 2020)
Do international students graduating from US colleges and universities affect labour market outcomes of similarly educated native-born workers? I address this question by exploiting a change in US visa policy that results in increases in the labour supply of master’s-level international students to the US labour market in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Estimates show that increases in their labour supply via temporary work permits in a certain field reduce employment of recently graduated native-born holders of a master’s degree but increase earnings of experienced native-born holders of a master’s degree in the same field. These findings support the hypothesis of substitution between skills of similarly educated immigrants and native-born individuals in the same age group and complementarity between skills of those in different age groups.
Transition of International Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Students to the US Labor Market: The Role of Visa Policy (Economic Inquiry, 2019)
(EdPolicyWorks Working Paper No 42)
I analyze how visa policies affect international students' transition to the U.S. labor market. The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program permits international students to work via a student visa for a limited period after graduation before obtaining a work visa—an uncertain process due to the binding visa cap. I find that the extension in the length of OPT terms for students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) increases their likelihood of initially staying in the United States and using OPT. This result suggests that uncertainties about obtaining work visas hinder international STEM students' participation in the U.S. labor market.
Finishing Degrees and Finding Jobs: US Higher Education and the Flow of Foreign IT Workers (Innovation Policy and the Economy, 2015)
(NBER Working Paper No 20505)
The rising importance of information technology (IT) occupations in the US economy has been accompanied by an expansion in the representation of high-skill, foreign-born IT workers. To illustrate, the share of the foreign born in IT occupations increased from about 15.5% to about 31.5% between 1993 and 2010, with this increased representation particularly marked among those younger than 45. This analysis focuses on understanding the role that US higher education and immigration policy plays in this transformation. A degree from a US college/university is an important pathway to participation in the US IT labor market, and the foreign born who obtain US degree credentials are particularly likely to remain in the United States. Many workers from abroad, including countries like India and China where wages in IT fields lag those in the United States, receive a substantial return to finding employment in the United States, even as temporary work visa policies may limit their entry. Limits on temporary work visas, which are particularly binding for those educated abroad, likely increase the attractiveness of degree attainment from US colleges and universities as a pathway to explore opportunities in the US labor market in IT.