Networks, Sorting and Self-selection of Ecuadorian Migrants

This paper provides new empirical evidence about the influence exerted by migration networks upon migrants' self-selection in education from the analysis of the recent process of Ecuadorian migration. The severe economic crisis that hit Ecuador in the late 1990s induced a massive wave of migration, from a country which was characterized by a substantial geographical variability in the size of migration networks. As Ecuadorian migrants opted for a variety of destination countries in the aftermath of the crisis, we estimate a multinomial logistic model to assess the impact of migration networks on both migrants' sorting and self-selection. The estimates are in line with the theoretical arguments which predict that migration networks increase the likelihood or the extent of a negative self-selection of the migrants with respect to education.