Overview
Labor economist; Professor at George Washington University (formerly University of Illinois Chicago). A founding figure in the economic study of immigrant assimilation in the U.S. labor market. His 1978 JPE paper established the assimilation model that Borjas subsequently revised and that the IHCI model of Duleep and Regets refined further.
Key Contributions / Features
- Immigrant assimilation model (Chiswick 1978, 1979): Using cross-sectional census data, showed immigrants initially earn less than comparable natives but experience faster earnings growth, approaching native earnings after ~15 years. Theorized that immigrants lack U.S.-specific skills (language, credentials, institutional knowledge) that reduce the market value of their home-country human capital; assimilation = acquiring those specific skills.
- Introduced the concept of skill transferability: immigrants from countries with similar educational systems, industrial structures, and labor-market reward structures to the U.S. (e.g., Western Europe) face less transferability loss than those from structurally different countries.
- The cross-sectional methodology's key assumption — constant entry earnings across immigrant cohorts — was invalidated by Borjas (1985), limiting the scope of Chiswick's assimilation estimates.
- His institutional skill-transfer account has difficulty explaining the English proficiency paradox (Japanese immigrants have high entry earnings despite low English proficiency; Filipino/Indian immigrants have high English proficiency but lower entry earnings), which the Duleep-Regets opportunity-selection model addresses.
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