We investigate whether time-persistent cultural borders impede economic exchange across regions of the same country. To measure cultural differences we evaluate, for the first time in economics, linguistic micro-data about phonological and grammatical features of German dialects. These data are...

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the past four decades of empirical research on the relationship between internal migration and regional variation in the generosity of Canada's unemployment insurance system. It has long been argued that because the Canadian insurance system is...

Epidemiological models assume gravity-like interactions of individuals across space without microfoundations. We combine a simple epidemiological frame-work with a dynamic model of individual location choice. The model predicts that flows of people across space obey a structural gravity...

Distance related variables typically vary in a cross-section dimension but less so in a time dimension across cities, regions, or countries. The enlargement of the EU or the introduction of the euro, however, can be looked upon as integration shocks that are informative of the consequences of...

We study the tension between fiscal decentralization and progressive taxation. We present a multi-community model in which households differ in incomes and housing preferences and in which the local income tax rate is a function of an exogenous progressive tax schedule and an endogenous local...

This paper explores the effects of high skilled immigration to a host country with unionized low skilled labor and an unemployment insurance scheme. We show that such immigration can create a negative immigration surplus due to adverse effects on low skilled employment, provided that fiscal...

The economic consequences of migration are hotly debated and a main topic of recent populist movements across Europe. We analyze Polish immigration in the context of the 2004 enlargement of the European Union and find a positive and significant spillover effect of the immigrants on the number of...

Exploiting the random allocation of asylum seekers to different locations in Germany, we study the impact of right-wing voting on refugees’ integration. We find that in municipalities with more voting for the right-wing AfD, refugees have worse economic and social integration. These impacts...

Did recent technological change, in the form of automation, affect immigration policy in the United States? I argue that as automation shifted employment from routine to manual occupations at the bottom end of the skill distribution, it increased competition between natives and immigrants,...

What affects native support for immigration? At a time of rising anti-immigration sentiments, this is a question raised by both academics and policy makers. We study the role of labor protection in shaping native preferences over migration policies. We look at Swiss national votes which took...