New Evidence on International Transferability of Human Capital

Abstract This article sheds new light on the portability of human capital. We estimate the returns to source country experiences, viz., general, occupation-specific, and task-specific experiences, using data from the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), conducted in 2003. While the “returns to general experience” has been discussed in the literature, we are not aware of any previous attempt to estimate the returns to source country occupation-specific and task-specific experiences. Our estimates show that even though the returns to source country general experience is negligible, returns to source country occupation-specific experience is economically and statistically significant. We also find that returns to source country abstract (specifically analytical) task-specific experience is substantial and significant. Our results are robust to inclusion of source country wage, which may reflect unobservable characteristics that influence wages. We explore whether returns to work experience vary by income level in the source country or by an immigrant’s skill level.