Based on the current European discussion about immigration policy, this paper gives an overview of central economic consequences of immigration for a host country's labor market. The most important theoretical arguments are presented and evaluated against the available empirical evidence. The...

As in the U.S. and Canada, migration is a controversial issue in Europe. This paper explores the possibility that immigration policy may affect the labor market assimilation of immigrants and hence natives' sentiments towards immigrants. It first reviews the assimilation literature in economics...

Among all European countries, Germany absorbs by far the largest number of immigrants. But to date, the German government has yet to adopt a system that will effectively control the influx of foreigners. The immigration of Ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe, which is due to historical events and...

In this paper we study how promoting product market competition by reducing mark-ups or by increasing productivity are able to complement labor market reforms. We use a simple general equilibrium model with different types of labor. The bottom-line of the paper is that product market reforms...

Migration is an unavoidable aspect of globalization. While full flexibility is politically unfeasible, the paper argues for regulated openness. Migration in the age of globalization should be judged according to the labor market needs of the receiving countries. This would also serve best the...

We examine wage-bargaining in a two-sector economy when employers and labor unions in each sector are not always aware of all general equilibrium feedback effects. We show analytically that if agents only consider labor demand effects, low real wages and low unemployment result. With an...

This study surveys the development of the East German labor market after the unification of Germany. We explain that in the last decade, East Germans were faced with very high levels of joblessness that considering labor market exits and active labor market policy, are only partly reported as...