Recent literature on the workhorse model of intra-industry trade has explored heterogeneous cost structures at the firm level. These approaches have proven to add realism and predictive power. This note shows, however, that this added realism also implies that there may exist a positive...

In this paper, we use a computable general equilibrium model (WIATEC) to study the potential impact of implementing Europe's 20-20-20 climate policy. The results show that the economic costs of implementing the policy are only moderate and within the range of recent empirical evidence....

This paper investigates the elusive role of productivity heterogeneity in new trade models in the trade and environment nexus. We contrast the Eaton-Kortum and the Melitz models with firm heterogeneity to the Armington and Krugman models without heterogeneity. We show that if firms have a...

This paper investigates the causal effect of geographic labour mobility on income. The returns to German East-West migration and commuting are estimated exploiting the structure of centrally planned economies and a "natural experiment" of German reunification for identification. I find that...

The determinants of migrants' remittances are the subject of this study based on German SOEP data (2001-2006). In contrast to previous studies we analyze the motives for remittances not only for foreigners but also for the broader group of individuals with a personal migration background. Major...

In the 2011 post-Arab Spring migration wave, over 64,000 migrants landed on the southern Italian coast, with many of them potentially working illegally on farms through caporalato, a widespread system of illegal recruitment of underpaid farm labor run by Italian agrimafias. To test this...

This paper studies the determinants of naturalization among Turkish and ex-Yugoslav immigrants in Germany differentiating between actual and planned citizenship. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel, we measure the impact that integration and ethnicity indicators exert on the probability to...

Mobility of workers involves flows of labour, human capital and other production factors and thus contributes to a more efficient allocation of resources. Besides these effects on allocative efficiency, migrant flows affect relative wages and also change the international and national...

The 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union were unprecedented in a number of economic and policy aspects. This essay provides a broad and in-depth account of the effects of the post-enlargement migration flows on the receiving as well as sending countries in three broader areas: labour...

This paper outlines the importance of labor mobility for the improvement in allocating and distributing economic resources. We are faced with an increasing lack of skilled workers and a growing tendency of unemployment amongst the low-skilled. A central political objective for the future will...