Admission policies and immigrant skillsThe case of Spain

Resumo

It is often argued that tougher immigration policies have a positive selection e¤ect on immigration from the perspective of the host country. These policies increase the cost of migrating, making it less attractive for less-skilled individuals. However, there is relatively little evidence addressing the causality of these arguments. In this paper we use the imposition of visa requirements by the European Union with regard to Colombia and Ecuador to identify whether the increase in costs a¤ected the compositon of migration in terms of obvervable skills (schooling). Our results show that the increase in migration costs due to the imposition of visa requirements did a¤ect the proportion of poorly and well-educated immigrants arriving from these two countries: there was a relative increase in the proportion of the more skilled.