It is often argued that tax competition may lead to a ‘race to the bottom'. This result may indeed hold in the case of factor mobility (such as capital). However, in this paper we emphasize the unique feature of labor migration, that may nullify the'race to the bottom' hypothesis. Labor...

The paper analyzes the relation between monetary uncertainty and government incentives to implement economic reforms that reduce structural distortions and make economies more flexible. It is shown that uncertainty about the central bank's reaction function leads to more reforms. I relate this...

We use a quantitative model to study the implications of European integration for welfare and migration flows across 1,318 regions. The model suggests that an increase of trade barriers to the level of 1957 reduces welfare by about 1-2 percent on average, depending on the presumed trade...

The paper provides an equilibrium analysis of how countries compete for migrants. The type of competition (tax or transfer competition) depends on whether the competing countries have similar policy preferences. With symmetric preferences, countries compete in taxes for migrants. With asymmetric...

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of refugee migration, with emphasis on the current refugee crisis. After first reviewing the institutional framework laid out by the Geneva Convention for Refugees, we demonstrate that, despite numerous attempts at developing a common European asylum...

A wide variety of social protection systems coexist within the EU. Some member states provide social insurance that is of Beveridgean inspiration (with universal and more or less flat benefits), while others offer a system that is mainly Bismarckian (with benefits related to past contributions)....

The paper first discusses the main sources of concern for people in the perspective of professional mobility abroad as they result from the analysis of the Eurobarometer survey, wave 75.1 of 2011. Second, it tests whether portability of social security within Europe is a determinant of intra-EU...

The economic effects from labor market integration are crucially affected by the extent to which countries are open to trade. In this paper we build a multi-country dynamic general equilibrium model with trade in goods and labor mobility across countries to study and quantify the economic...