Welcome to the United States: Self-selection of Puerto Rican Migrants

Abstract

I analyze the characteristics of Puerto Rican migrants and non-migrants to make two contributions to existing literature: (1) The empirical analysis demonstrates that contrary to previous studies done on only working men, the 1990 data inclusive of women and non-working individuals actually support a positive self-selection in which highly skilled Puerto Ricans migrate to the U.S. The 2000 results, however, do provide strong support for negative self-selection in which the less skilled migrate. (2) The predicted, counterfactual wages for migrant and non-migrant counterparts reveal that wage differentials are not the only consideration in their decision to migrate.