We develop a theoretical model of human skill formation and emigration. Additionally to existing brain drain models, we partly endogenize the heterogeneity of the individuals, by introducing aspirations. Emigration of an individual will result in a migration experience, which increases the...

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...

A key problem in the literature on the economics of migration is how emigration of an individual affects households left behind. Answers to this question must confront a problem I refer to as invisible sample selection: when entire households migrate, no information about them remains in their...

This paper identifies the determinants and patterns of mass migration in Moldova – a country in which migration has become the dominant socioeconomic phenomenon in a period of less than 8 years. Special emphasis is placed on seasonal migration, which has become increasingly popular in many...

Unlike in Asia, the manufacturing sector has not (yet) become a driver of structural change in Africa. One common explanation is that the natural resource-focus of many African economies leads to Dutch disease effects. To test this argument for the case of newly found oil in Ghana we develop a...

“Desert Power 2050” is probably the world’s most ambitious strategy report towards the decarbonization of the power sector in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (EUMENA). The report inspired by the Desertec vision aims at providing clean energy from MENA’s desert regions to the...

International migration not only enables individuals to earn higher wages but also exposes them to new environments. The norms and values experienced at the destination country could change the behavior of the migrant but also of family members left behind. In this paper we argue that a brain...

Does immigration accelerate sectoral change towards high-productivity sectors? This paper uses the mass displacement of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe to West Germany after World War II as a natural experiment to study this question. A simple two-sector model of the economy, in which moving...

Human trafficking is a humanitarian problem of global scale, but quantitative research on the issue barely exists. This paper is a first attempt to explore the economic drivers of human trafficking and migrant exploitation using micro data. We argue that migration pressure combined with informal...

This paper develops a model of the circumstances under which it is beneficial to participate in a currency area. The proposed two-country monetary model of trade with nominal rigidities encompasses the real and monetary arguments suggested by the optimum currency area literature: correlation of...