The paper studies the impact of unemployment benefits on immigration. A sample of 19 European countries observed over the period 1993-2008 is used to test the hypothesis that unemployment benefit spending (UBS) is correlated with immigration flows from EU and non-EU origins. While OLS estimates...

Theoretical arguments and previous country-level evidence indicate that immigrants are more fluid than natives in responding to changing labor shortages across countries, skill-groups or industries. The diversity across EU member states enables us to test this hypothesis across various...

It is widely believed that the current recession has soured public attitudes towards immigration. But most existing studies are cross sectional and can shed little light on the economy-wide forces that shift public opinion on immigration. In this paper I use the six rounds of the European Social...

Historical experience suggests that when a period of rising immigration is followed by a sudden slump, this can trigger a policy backlash. This has not occurred in the current recession. This paper examines three links in the chain between the slump and immigration policy. First, although...

The role of institutions in immigrant integration remains underexplored in spite of its essential significance for integration policies. This paper adopts the Varieties of Capitalism framework to study the institutional determinants of Immigrant-Native gaps in host labor markets. Using the EU...

Policy towards asylum seekers has been a controversial topic for more than a decade. Rising numbers of asylum applications have been met with ever-tougher policies to deter them. Following a period of policy harmonisation, the EU has reached a crucial stage in the development of a new Common...

A minority of applicants for asylum in Europe gain some form of recognition as refugees, and this has been a controversial issue. From the early 2000s the EU introduced a series of directives to prevent a race to the bottom in asylum policies and to harmonise policy between destination countries...

This chapter provides the historical context for the past half-century in Europe focusing specifically on the link between migration and economic development and inequality. The literature review suggests that there are several channels through which migration affects economic inequality between...

There is growing interest among economists in public opinion towards immigration, something that is often seen as the foundation for restrictive immigration policies. Existing studies have focused on the responses to survey questions on whether the individual would prefer more or less...