Aimee Chin

Language Skills and Earnings: Evidence from Childhood Immigrants.

Research on the effect of language skills on earnings is complicated by the endogeneity of language skills. This study exploits the phenomenon that younger children learn languages more easily than older children to construct an instrumental variable for language proficiency. We find a significant positive effect of English proficiency on wages among adults who immigrated to the United States as children. Much of this effect appears to be mediated through education. Differences between non-English-speaking origin countries and English-speaking ones that might make immigrants from the latter a poor control group for nonlanguage age-at-arrival effects do not appear to drive these findings.

The Returns to English-Language Skills in India

India’s colonial legacy and linguistic diversity give English an important role in its economy, and this role has expanded due to globalization in recent decades. In this study, we use individual-level data from the 2005 India Human Development Survey to quantify the effects of English-language skills on wages. After controlling for age, social group, schooling, geography, and proxies for ability, we find that hourly wages are on average 34% higher for men who speak fluent English and 13% higher for men who speak a little English relative to men who do not speak English. The return to fluent English is as large as the return to completing secondary school and half as large as the return to completing a bachelor’s degree. In addition, we find that more experienced and more educated workers receive higher returns to English. The complementarity between English skills and education appears to have strengthened over time—only the more educated among young workers receive a premium for English-speaking ability, whereas older workers across all education groups do.

The Redistributive Effects of Political Reservation for Minorities: Evidence from India

We examine the impact of political reservation for disadvantaged minority groups on poverty. To address the concern that political reservation is endogenous, we take advantage of the state-time variation in reservation in state legislative assemblies in India generated by national policies that cause reservations to be revised and the time lags with which revised reservations are implemented. Using data on sixteen major Indian states for the period 1960-2000, we find that increasing the share of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes significantly reduces poverty while increasing the share of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes has no impact on poverty. Political reservation for Scheduled Tribes has a greater effect on rural poverty than urban poverty, and appears to benefit people near the poverty line as well as those far below it.

Does Reducing College Costs Improve Educational Outcomes for Undocumented Immigrants? Evidence from State Laws Permitting Undocumented Immigrants to Pay In-state Tuition at State Colleges and Universities

Ten states, beginning with Texas and California in 2001, have passed laws permitting undocumented students to pay the in-state tuition rate - rather than the more expensive out-of-state tuition rate - at public universities and colleges. We exploit state-time variation in the passage of the laws to evaluate the effects of these laws on the educational outcomes of Hispanic childhood immigrants who are not U.S. citizens. Specifically, through the use of individual-level data from the 2001-2005 American Community Surveys supplemented by the 2000 U.S. Census, we estimate the effect of the laws on the probability of attending college for 18- to 24-year-olds who have a high school degree and the probability of dropping out of high school for 16- to 17-year-olds. We find some evidence suggestive of a positive effect of the laws on the college attendance of older Mexican men, although estimated effects of the laws in general are not significantly different from zero.

Long‐Run Labor Market Effects of Japanese American Internment during World War II on Working‐Age Male Internees

In 1942, all Japanese were evacuated from the West Coast and incarcerated in internment camps. To investigate the long‐run economic consequences of this historic episode, I exploit the fact that Hawaiian Japanese were not subject to mass internment. I find that the labor market withdrawal induced by the internment reduced the annual earnings of males by as much as 9%–13% 25 years afterward. This is consistent with the predictions of an economic model that equates the labor market withdrawal induced by the internment with a loss of civilian labor market experience or a loss of advantageous job matches.

Is Spanish-only schooling responsible for the Puerto Rican language gap?

Between 1898 and 1948, English was the language of instruction for most post-primary grades in Puerto Rican public schools. Since 1949, the language of instruction in all grades has been Spanish. We use this policy change to estimate the effect of English-intensive instruction on the English-language skills of Puerto Ricans. Although naive estimates suggest that English instruction increased English-speaking ability among Puerto Rican natives, estimates that allow for education-specific cohort trends show no effect. This result is surprising in light of the strong presumption by American policymakers at the time that instruction in English was the best way to raise English proficiency. This has implications for medium of instruction policy in former colonies as well as U.S. education policy toward immigrant children. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Technical Change and the Demand for Skills during the Second Industrial Revolution: Evidence from the Merchant Marine, 1891–1912

Using a large, individual-level wage data set, we examine the impact of a major technological innovationthe steam engineon the demand for skills in the merchant shipping industry. We find that the technical change created a new demand for engineers, a skilled occupation. It had a deskilling effect on production workmoderately skilled able-bodied seamen were replaced by unskilled engine room operatives. On the other hand, able-bodied seamen, carpenters, and mates employed on steam vessels earned a premium relative to their counterparts on sail vessels, and this appears partly related to skill.

The Effects of English Proficiency among Childhood Immigrants: Are Hispanics Different?

We test whether the effect of English proficiency differs between Hispanic and non-Hispanic immigrants. Using 2000 US Census microdata on immigrants who arrived before age 15, we relate labor market, education, marriage, fertility, and location of residence variables to their age at arrival in the US, and in particular whether that age fell within the “critical period” of language acquisition. We interpret the observed difference in outcomes between childhood immigrants who arrive during the critical period and those who arrive later (adjusted for non-language-related age-at-arrival effects using childhood immigrants from English-speaking countries) as an effect of English-language skills and construct an instrumental variable for English-language skills. We find that both Hispanics and non-Hispanics exhibit lower English proficiency if they arrive after the critical period, but this drop in English proficiency is larger for Hispanics. The effect of English proficiency on earnings and education is nevertheless quite similar across groups, while some differences are seen for marriage, fertility, and location of residence outcomes. In particular, although higher English proficiency reduces (for both groups) the number of children and the propensity to be married, marry someone with the same birthplace or origin, and live in an “ethnic enclave,” these effects are smaller for Hispanics.