Karmen Suen

Job Market Paper: Labor Returns to Home Country Education Quality for Immigrants

The primary focus of this paper is to test whether pre-migrational education quality affect the returns to an additional year of post-migrational education for immigrants who migrate to the United States. Using the eighth grade mathematics test score of the 1995 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) as a proxy for home country education quality, along with the 2000 Census, this paper finds that, for immigrants, a one standard deviation increase in pre-migrational education quality (TIMSS score) increases the returns to one additional year of post-migrational education by 0.83 percentage points on average, but TIMSS does not magnify the returns to an extra year of pre-migrational education. In order to test whether such effect varies across individuals belonging to different quantiles of the conditional wage distribution, a quantile regression, with log wages as the outcome variable, is also performed. This pre-migrational education quality effect remains positive and significant for individuals at the lower 25th percentile of the conditional wage distribution, while it becomes insignificant for those at the median or the upper 75th percentile. Another finding of the paper is that there exist diminishing returns to post-migrational years of schooling for immigrants at all wage quantiles, but evidence is mixed in regards to pre-migrational years of education.

The Use of Language: Does Speaking a Non-English Native Language Hurt or Benefit Immigrant Wages?

The purpose of this paper is to observe whether the ability to speak a non-English mother tongue would enhance wages earned by immigrant workers in the United States. Although many studies found that deficiency in English adversely affect immigrant wages, there are situations in which proficiency in a foreign language is valuable in the labor market. For example, if the majority of co-workers share the same language background, using one's mother tongue might facilitate a more efficient communication, thereby increasing each worker's productivity. In addition, for an immigrant who works in an enclave occupied by other immigrants with the same language fluency, the ability to speak a common non-English language might allow the immigrant to attract a larger pool of customers compared to another immigrant who works in a county occupied with native English-speakers. Therefore, an immigrant with a job that requires more human-interaction on a regular basis, which values his ability to speak a foreign language, could earn a higher wage rate compared to his counterpart who holds a job that requires less verbal interactions. Furthermore, this paper tests whether the bilateral trade volume between one's country of origin and the United States alters the returns to working in various industries that deals with foreign partners. Specifically, compared to a native U.S. worker, an immigrant worker has an advantage if he works in the trading industry, for not only can he serve as a worker, but he can also fulfill the role of an interpreter for the firm.