LABOR MOBILITY OF IMMIGRANTS: TRAINING, EXPERIENCE, LANGUAGE, AND OPPORTUNITIES

This article analyzes the labor mobility and human capital accumulation of male immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel. We estimate a dynamic choice model for employment and training in blue- and white-collar occupations, where the labor market randomly offered opportunities are affected by past choices. The estimated model accurately reproduces the patterns in the data. The estimated direct earning return to local training, local experience, and knowledge of Hebrew are very high, whereas imported skills have zero (conditional) return. The welfare gain from the impact of training on job offer probabilities is larger than its effect on wages. Copyright © 2008 the Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.