We study the interplay between host countries' characteristics and self‐selection patterns in relation to refugees' economic assimilation using a natural experiment in which immigrants from one region migrated to three destinations under similar circumstances. We focus on emigrants fleeing from Argentina and Chile during the military regimes there to the United States, Sweden, and Israel. We find that those refugees show patterns of selection and assimilation similar to those of economic immigrants. Immigrants to the United States and Israel exhibit better selection patterns and consequently faster assimilation than immigrants to Sweden even considering the positive effect of the Swedish market structure.