This paper analyzes whether immigrant families facing credit constraints adopt a family investment strategy wherein, upon arrival, an immigrant spouse invests in host country-specific human capital while the other partner works to finance the family's current consumption. Using data for West...

In this paper a simultaneous-equations model of firm closing and wage determination is developed in order to analyse how wages adjust to unfavorable shocks that raise the risk of displacement through firm closing, and to what extent a wage change affects the exit likelihood. Using a longitudinal...

This paper investigates the transferability of human capital across countries and the contribution of imperfect human capital portability to the explanation of the immigrant-native wage gap. Using data for West Germany, our results reveal that, overall, education and labor market experience...

Economic conditions at the time of labour market entry can induce wage differentials between workers entering the labour market at different points in time. While the existence and persistence of these entry wage differentials are well documented, little is known about their interaction with...

A thorny problem in identifying the determinants of reservation wages and particularly the role of continued joblessness in their evolution is the simultaneity issue. We deploy a natural control function approach to the problem that involves conditioning elapsed duration on completed...

This paper combines individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) with economic and demographic postcode-level data from administrative records to analyze the effects of immigration on wages and unemployment probabilities of high- and low-skilled natives. Employing an...

The flight and expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe during and after World War II constitutes one of the largest forced population movements in history. We analyze the economic integration of these forced migrants and their offspring in West Germany. The empirical results suggest that even a...

This paper provides estimates of the union wage gap in Portugal, a nation until recently lacking independent data on union density at firm level. Having estimated nonlinear and linear estimates of the effect of union density on the wage gap, the next stage of the analysis seeks to account for...

Using an unusually rich matched employer-employee-job title data set for Portugal, this paper evaluates the sources of wage losses of workers displaced due to firm closure based on the comparison of workers' wages differentials before and after displacement. Potential wage losses of displaced...