Immigration Policies and the Ecuadorian Exodus

Ecuador recently experienced an unprecedented wave of emigration following the\udsevere economic crisis of the late 1990s. Individual-level data for Ecuador and its two\udmain migration destinations, Spain and the United States, are used to examine the size\udand skill composition of these migration flows and the role of wage differences in\udaccounting for these features. Estimations of earnings regressions for Ecuadorians in\udall three countries show substantially larger income gains following migration to the\udUnited States than to Spain, with the wage differential increasing with migrants’ education\udlevel. While this finding can account for the pattern of positive sorting in education\udtoward the United States, it fails to explain why most Ecuadorians opted for\udSpain. The explanation for this preference appears to lie in Spain’s visa waiver\udprogram for Ecuadorians. When the program was abruptly terminated, monthly\udinflows of Ecuadorians to Spain declined immediately.Simone Bertoli received financial support from the RBNE03YT7Z project, funded by the Italian\udMinistry for Education, University and Research. Jesu´ s Ferna´ndez-Huertas Moraga received financial\udsupport from the ECO2008-04785 project, funded by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation.Peer reviewe