Wage expectations of illegal immigrants: The role of networks and previous migration experience

In this paper, I use a unique survey on illegal immigrants apprehended in Italy to investigate migrants expected wages at the intended destination. The results show that – taking into account individual׳s human capital – a large part of immigrants overestimate the wage they could earn in Italy. We find that expected wages are positively affected by migration network and previous experience. When migrating within a network, skilled migrants do not expect higher wages compared to unskilled ones probably anticipating the ‘skill waste’ associated with the illegal status.