The economic performance of immigrants: A theory of assortative matching

The economic performance of U.S. immigrants differs substantially from that of natives in ways that pose difficulties for standard theories of migrati on. In particular, immigrants cluster geographically and are often employed together. Immigrant earnings differ by origin and time spent in the United States, even after controlling for education and experience. A large fract ion of immigrants eventually returns home, even to low-wage countries. This article offers a theory of international migration based on assortative ma tching under imperfect information that accounts for a broad range of these empirical regularities.