When immigrants meet exporters: A reassessment of the migrant-native wage gap

摘要

We show that exporting reshapes the migrant-native wage gap. We develop a model with heterogeneous firms and directed search, showing that high-skilled immigrants lower fixed export costs by leveraging destination-specific knowledge. The model generates an information premium for these workers in exporting firms that can offset immigrant-specific labour-market disadvantages. Using Portuguese employer-employee data linked to customs records, we observe a closing of the migrant-native wage gap among high-skilled workers in exporting firms, so that high-skilled immigrants earn wages comparable to those of high-skilled natives. We find no such results for low-skilled workers. To test the information premium hypothesis, we exploit differences across immigrants’ origin countries and firms’ export destinations. Our results indicate that destination-specific exporting can help reduce the wage gap, especially for high-skilled occupations. We thus provide micro-level evidence that immigrants’ export-facilitating role translates into wage premia within firms.