Overview
Economist at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Frequent collaborator with Harriet Orcutt Duleep on the theoretical and empirical foundations of immigrant earnings trajectories. Co-developer of the Immigrant Human Capital Investment (IHCI) model.
Key Contributions / Features
- Co-developed the IHCI model with Duleep (1992–2002): established that low skill transferability induces higher human capital investment, predicting an inverse relationship between immigrant entry earnings and earnings growth that holds across cohorts, national-origin groups, and within age-education cells.
- Co-author Duleep and Regets (1997b) "The Decline in Immigrant Entry Earnings: Less Transferable Skills or Lower Ability?" — directly tests Borjas's ability-decline explanation against the skill-transferability explanation and finds evidence for the latter.
- Co-author Duleep and Regets (1999) "Immigrants and Human Capital Investment" (AER P&P): established that low-transferability immigrants invest more in human capital than natives or high-transferability immigrants holding education constant.
- Co-author Duleep and Regets (2002) "The Elusive Concept of Immigrant Quality": followed cohorts across multiple censuses to document the inverse entry-earnings-growth relationship and its source-country determinants.
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