In this article, we analyze individual factors and situational conditions under which immigrants are more or less likely to invest in host country-specific human capital. Theoretically, we root our expectations in a strand of the immigrant human capital investment model combined with a basic...

We investigate the assimilation of immigrant youth in Ecuador. Focusing on formal schooling and employing administrative data from high schools, we document subtle ways by which assessment biases against students with an immigrant background play a significant role in this assimilation process....

We investigate whether the Big Five Personality Dimensions contribute to explaining gender and migrant wage gaps by using a linked employer-employee dataset. We expand the scarce literature concerning personality traits and gender wage gaps in Germany and we provide first evidence for the...

We estimate the effect of language training on subsequent employment and wages of immigrants under essential heterogeneity. The identifying variation is based on regional differences in language training availability that we use to instrument endogenous participation. Estimating marginal...

Proficiency in the host country's language is an important factor for a successful labor market integration of immigrants. In this study we analyze the effects of a language training program for professional purposes on the employment opportunities of the participants. We apply an instrumental...

We analyse the role that education signals play in the transition rates from unemployment to finding a job. We compare the results for Ethnic Germans with those for foreigners from the same origin countries and Native Germans. In the first case, the two have the same labour market access but...

The strong adverse selection that immigrants face in hosting labour markets may induce them to adopt some behaviours or signals to modify employers' beliefs. Relevant mechanisms for reaching this purpose are personal reputation; exploiting ethnic networks deeply-rooted in the hosting country;...

Empirical evidence for the US shows that migrants increase the productivity of regions. To explain the impact of migrants on the average firm productivity we construct a general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition a la Melitz (2003). We consider heterogeneous firms with different...

This paper analyses occupational trajectories of refugees from their last job in the home country to their first and current jobs in Austria and the role of co-ethnic and Austrian social networks in job search, using data from a large-scale survey of recognised refugees from Syria, Afghanistan,...

We analyze socioemotional skills' role for destination-language proficiency among recent refugees in Germany. While socioemotional skills have been shown to predict educational outcomes, they have been overlooked for immigrants' language acquisition. We extend a well-established model of...