We examine the impact of the Americanization of names on the labor market outcomes of migrants. We construct a novel longitudinal data set of naturalization records in which we track a complete sample of migrants who naturalize by 1930. We find that migrants who Americanized their names experienced larger occupational upgrading. Some, such as those who changed to very popular American names like John or William, obtained gains in occupationbased earnings of at least 14%. We show that these estimates are causal effects by using an index of linguistic complexity based on Scrabble points as an instrumental variable that predicts name Americanization. We conclude that the tradeoff between individual identity and labor market success was present since the early making of modern America JEL CLASSIFICATIONJ61, J62, Z1, N32 KEYWORDSAmericanization, names, assimilation, migration EDITORIAL NOTEDr Costanza Biavaschi is a Research Associate and Deputy Program Director for the Migration Area at the Institute for the Study of Labor, Germany. Costanza's research interests are in labor economics and applied econometrics, with a focus on return migration, the dynamics of migration choices, and the selection of migrants.Dr Corrado Giulietti is Director of Research at the Institute for the Study of Labor, Germany. Corrado is also a Research Associate of the ESRC Centre for Population Change. His research interests are labor economics and applied econometrics, with a focus on the determinants of migration, the labor market and welfare effects of migration, the assimilation of immigrants, and the estimation of migration flows.Dr Zahra Siddique is a Lecturer in economics at the University of Reading, UK. Zahra's research interests are in micro-econometrics, labor economics and development economics. II ESRC Centre for Population ChangeThe ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC) is a joint initiative between the Universities of Southampton, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Stirling, Strathclyde, in partnership with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the National Records of Scotland (NRS). The Centre is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant numbers RES-625-28-0001 and ES/K007394/1. This working paper series publishes independent research, not always funded through the Centre. The views and opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect those of the CPC, ESRC, ONS or NRS.Website | Email | Twitter | Facebook | Mendeley ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors would like to thank participants at the 10th IZA Annual Migration Meeting, the 4th TEMPO conference on international migration, the Essex Fresh meeting as well as seminar participants at IZA, the University of Reading, Tsinghua University and the University of Southampton for their helpful comments. This draft has greatly benefitted from comments by Benjamin Elsner, Lidia Farré, Jesús Fernández-Huertas Moraga, Daniel Hamermesh, Carolyn Moehling, Andrew Oswald, Núria Rodríguez-Planas, Todd Sorensen, Derek Stemple, Christopher Taber, and Konstantinos Ta...

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.IZA Discussion Paper No. 6795 August 2012 ABSTRACT Recovering the Counterfactual Wage Distribution with Selective Return MigrationThis paper explores the distribution of immigrant wages in the absence of return migration from the host country. In particular, it recovers the counterfactual wage distribution if all Mexican immigrants were to settle in the United States and no out-migration of Mexican-born workers occurred. Because migrants self-select in the decision to return, the overarching problem addressed by this study is the use of an estimator that accounts also for selection on unobservables. I adopt a semiparametric procedure that recovers this counterfactual distribution and find that Mexican returnees are middle-to high-wage earners at all levels of educational attainment. The presented results contrast with the general perception that those migrants who return home have failed in the host country.JEL Classification: J61, F22

Using census data for 1996, 2001 and 2007 we study the labor market effect of immigration to South Africa. We exploit the variation -both at the district and at the national levelin the share of foreign-born male workers across schooling and experience groups over time. In addition, we use an instrumental variable empirical strategy to estimate the causal effect of immigration on the local labor market. At the district level, we show that increased immigration has a negative and significant effect on natives' employment rates but not on total income. At the national level, we find that increased immigration has a negative and significant effect on natives' total income but not on employment rates. Our results are consistent with outflows of natives to other districts as a consequence of migration, as in Borjas ( 2006).

Youth Unemployment and Vocational Training 1This paper focuses on the determinants of the labor market situation of young people in developed countries and the developing world, with a special emphasis on the role of vocational training and education policies. We highlight the role of demographic factors, economic growth and labor market institutions in explaining young people's transition into work. We then assess differences in the setup and functioning of the vocational education and training policies in major world regions, as an important driver of differential labor market situation of youth. Based on our analysis we argue in favor of vocational education and training systems combining work experience and general education and give some policy recommendations regarding the implementation of education and training systems adapted to a country's economic and institutional context.