We develop and empirically test a theory concerning individual beliefs about whether immigrants should culturally assimilate into the host society or preserve their own cultural norms. We argue that when national identity is a source of intrinsic utility, the longevity of national identity...

This paper explores a new theoretical and empirical approach to the assessment of human wellbeing, relevant to current challenges of social fragmentation in the presence of globalization and technological advance. We present two indexes of well-being - solidarity (S) and agency (A) - to be...

We examine both theoretically and empirically how migration affects cultural change in home and host countries. Our theoretical model integrates various compositional and cultural transmission mechanisms of migration-based cultural change for which it delivers distinctive testable predictions on...

What drives change in a society's values? From Marx to modernization theory, scholars have identified a connection between structural transformation and social change. To understand how changes in a society's dominant mode of production affect its dominant values, we examine the case of the...

This paper links the two nascent economic literatures on social networks and cultural assimilation by investigating the evolution of population attributes in a simple model where agents are influenced by their acquaintances. The main conclusion of the analysis is that attributes converge to a...

Germany has become the second-most important destination for migrants worldwide. Using all waves from the microcensus, we study their labor market integration over the last 50 years and highlight differences to the US case. Although the employment gaps between immigrant and native men decline...

Exploiting the age-at-enrollment policies in 16 German states as exogenous source of variation, I examine whether the schooling of the oldest child in a migrant household affects parents’ integration. My analysis links administrative records on primary school enrollment cutoff dates with micro...

This article analyzes the consequences of integration in public education. I show that the flight from the integrated multicultural public schools to private education increases private educational expenditures and, as a result, decreases fertility among more affluent parents whose children...

This paper assesses the role of a larger degree of common language use between the populations of two countries on the so-called extensive product margin of trade. We focus on the overlap of products exported or imported between any pair of countries. The results suggest that the effect of...

Research on immigrants' educational disadvantages largely focuses on differences in student achievement tests. Exploiting data from the German PIRLS extension, we find that second-generation immigrants face additional disadvantages with respect to grades and teacher recommendations for secondary...