USA immigration policy, source-country social programs, and the skill composition of legal USA immigration

In this paper, highly skilled and less-skilled immigrants in three age classes (20-34, 35-49, and 50-64) are distinguished. Since most highly skilled immigrants are males who enter the USA as numerically restricted, we study only numerically restricted male immigrants. Annual data (1972-1991) for 86 source countries are pooled, and the Hausman-Taylor instrumental variable technique is used to estimate the regressions. Along with measures of differential economic opportunities, migration costs, and USA institutional controls, we incorporate a unique set of variables relating to social programs in source countries. Such programs prove to be significant determinants of the skill composition of USA immigrants.