The relationship between the business cycle and the financial cycle in Uruguay: 1870-2019

The main rational motivation understood to be behind migration decisions is to improve opportunities and future life chances, both for the migrants themselves and for their offspring. Using a unique administrative dataset on Italians living abroad, we estimate for the first time the effect of parental international migration on the education, employment and income opportunities of descendants in the host country. We compare Italian second-generation immigrants with Italians residing in Italy having similar observable characteristics—such as age, sex, Italian region of origin and parental background—and also account for self-selection on unobservable characteristics by applying a multinomial selection bias correction framework. We find positive but heterogeneous returns to migration across destination countries. We document higher returns in terms of income than education, and observe important gender differences in occupational and income returns. Finally, we investigate the association between the estimated returns and certain characteristics of the host country’s education system and labour market.