在憑證主義和移民文獻中已經確立了目的地勞動力市場中外國教育證書的貶值以及由此產生的工資差距技術移民的經驗。技術移民是否從國內或國外學術機構獲得其證書傳統上是作為勞動力市場結果的先行者進行研究的。然而，以這種二元方式劃分教育證書限制了我們對不同聲望和起源水平的證書如何向雇主發出價值的理解。與目前獎學金中的主流傳統相反，本文通過研究外國資格證書如何影響移民在進入外國勞動力市場時所獲得的工資，從而通過檢查與目的地國家相比更具聲望和文化相似性的外國資格證書來打開傳統的二元變量。通過構建一個結合美國移民數據，大學排名和文化維度指數的獨特數據集，我們研究了技術移民如何通過獲得美國國內教育市場學校的證書，以及從學術機構獲得外國證書來向雇主發出價值信號與美國相比更具聲望和文化相似性本文的目的是表明，通過考慮外國證書中存在的異質性，我們可以提高對目的地勞動力市場中技術移民貨幣估值的理解。我們發現有更多經驗和更高教育程度的技術移民的工資更高的證據。雖然我們發現持有美國與外國學位的積極影響與先前的文獻一致，但是當控制大學排名時，這種影響變得無關緊要。我們的研究結果表明，聲望和文化相似性對技術移民的工資有統計學意義。

The devaluation of foreign education credentials in destination labor markets and the resulting wage gap skilled migrants experience has been well established in the credentialism and migration literature. Whether a skilled migrant obtained their credentials from a domestic or foreign academic institution has traditionally been studied as an antecedent to labor market outcomes. However, delineating education credentials in this binary fashion limits our understanding of how credentials with different levels of prestige and origins signal value to employers. In contrast to the dominant tradition in the current scholarship this paper opens up this traditionally binary variable by examining how foreign credentials that are more prestigious and culturally similar to the destination country affect the wages migrants obtain upon entering foreign labor markets. By constructing a unique dataset that combines U.S. immigration data, university rankings and cultural dimension indices, I examine how skilled migrants signal value to employers not only by obtaining credentials from schools in the domestic U.S. education market, but also by obtaining foreign credentials from academic institutions that are more prestigious and culturally similar to the U.S. The purpose of this paper is to show that by accounting for the heterogeneity that exists among foreign credentials we can improve our understanding of the monetary valuations of skilled migrants in destination labor markets. I find evidence of higher wages for skilled migrants with more experience, and higher levels of educational attainment. While I find a positive effect of holding a U.S. versus foreign degree consistent with previous literature, this effect is rendered insignificant when controlled for university ranking. The results show that prestige and cultural similarity have a statistically significant effect on the wages of skilled migrants.

Thesis Validation Letter i
Abstract (Chinese) ii
Abstract (English) iii
1. Introduction 1
2. Literature Review 3
2.1 International ranking as a signal of prestige 3
2.2 The role of cultural similarity in the valuation of credentials by employers 6
3. Data and Method 10
3.1 H1-B visas 10
3.2 QS University Rankings 12
3.3 Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Indices 13
3.4 Data 14
3.5 Dependent variable 17
3.6 Independent variables 19
3.6.1 Academic institution international ranking 19
3.7 Control variables 22
3.8 Statistical model 27
4. Results 29
5. Discussion & Conclusion 34
6. References 38
7. Appendix 42

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