As part of the Brown Bag Lunch series, the International Economics Department at the Graduate Institute is pleased to invite you to a public talk given by Giulia Sabbadini, PhD Researcher in International Economics, who will present her co-authored paper with Léa Marchal and Guzman Ourens.

When Immigrants Meet Exporters: A Reassessment of the Immigrant-Native Wage Gap

by Giulia Sabbadini, Léa Marchal and Guzman Ourens

Abstract: 

We use French employer-employee data for the manufacturing sector from 2005 to 2015 to reassess the wage gap between native and foreign workers. In line with previous evidence, we find that immigrant workers earn less than native workers, white-collar workers earn more than blue-collar workers, and exporters pay higher wages. In a new contribution to this literature, we find that the nativity wage gap varies with the export intensity of the firm and the occupational group of the worker. We present a theoretical model with heterogeneous firms and workers to show that our findings are consistent with white-collar immigrant workers capturing an informational rent, as they provide exporters with valuable information for accessing foreign markets. We provide empirical evidence for this mechanism. First, we analyze how the nativity wage gap varies with the complexity of the firm export activity. Second, we study how the average wage for immigrant workers from different origin groups varies with the export activity of the employing firm in those same regions.