We provide the first large-scale evidence on self-selection of refugees and irregular migrants who arrived in Europe in 2015 or 2016. Our analysis uses unique datasets from the International Organization for Migration and Gallup World Polls. We find that refugees are positively self-selected with respect to human capital, as are female irregular migrants. Male irregular migrants are negatively self-selected. These patterns hold whether analyzing individually stated main reason to emigrate, country-level conflict intensity, or sub-regional conflict intensity. Several additional analyses show that our results are unlikely to be driven by omitted variable bias or liquidity constraints. We offer a theoretical framework to explain these patterns, by extending the Roy-Borjas model to include risks related to staying in an unsafe country of origin, risks related to migration, and gender-specific returns to human capital.

我们提供了关于 2015 年或 2016 年抵达欧洲的难民和非正常移民的自我选择的第一个大规模证据。我们的分析使用了来自国际移民组织和盖洛普世界民意调查的独特数据集。我们发现难民在人力资本方面是积极自我选择的，女性非正常移民也是如此。男性非正常移徙者被消极地自我选择。无论是分析个别陈述的移民主要原因、国家层面的冲突强度还是次区域冲突强度，这些模式都适用。一些额外的分析表明，我们的结果不太可能由遗漏的变量偏差或流动性限制驱动。我们提供了一个理论框架来解释这些模式，通过扩展 Roy-Borjas 模型以包括与留在不安全的原籍国相关的风险，