To examine the impact of migrants on the average firm productivity, wages and welfare we construct a general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition a la Melitz (2003) considering heterogeneous firms with different productivity levels and imperfect substitutability between migrants and...

The aim of this paper is to outline differences in the socio-demographic and employment characteristics of Estonian people who have worked in a neighbouring country – Finland, Sweden, Latvia or Russia. The empirical part of this paper relies on data from CV Keskus – an online employment...

Using a simple theoretical model, we show that the level of migration costs relative to wealth determines the form of the relation between income and migration intentions, which can be monotonically decreasing, increasing, or inverse U-shaped. Using unique individual level data, covering three...

The concentration of people with diverse socio-cultural backgrounds in particular geographic areas may boost the creation of new ideas, knowledge spillovers, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. In this paper we measure the impact of the size, skills, and diversity of immigration on the...

Using comprehensive data for German establishments (1999-2008), we estimate plant-level production functions to analyze if “cultural diversity” affects total factor productivity. We distinguish diversity in the establishment’s workforce and in the aggregate regional labor force where the...

This paper combines individual data from the British Household Panel Survey and yearly population estimates for England to analyse the impact of cultural diversity on individual wages and on different aspects of job satisfaction. Do people living in more diverse areas have higher wages and job...

The 2004 accession of Eastern European countries (EU8) to the European Union has generated concerns about the influx of low-skill immigrants to the Western member states (EU15). Only three countries, namely Ireland, Sweden, and the UK, did not impose restrictions to immigration from Eastern...

Immigration policy design is an important and controversial topic in most developed countries. We inform this debate by evaluating the effects of an integration program for immigrants to Finland. The program consists of an individualized sequence of training and subsidized employment....

While most countries welcome (and some even subsidise) high-skilled immigrants, there is very limited evidence of their importance for domestic firms. To guide our empirical analysis, we first set up a simple theoretical model to show how foreign experts may impact on the productivity and wages...

In this paper, we investigate how changes in the skill mix of local labor supply are absorbed by the economy. We distinguish between three adjustment mechanisms: through factor prices, through an expansion in the size of those production units that use the more abundant skill group more...