This paper investigates the economic returns to language skills and bilingualism. The analysis is staged in Kazakhstan, a multi-ethnic country with complex ethnic settlement patterns that has switched its official state language from Russian to Kazakh. Using two newly assembled data sets, we...

In this paper we analyze economic and spatial determinants of interregional migration in Kazakhstan using quarterly panel data on region to region migration in 2008-2010. In line with traditional economic theory we find that migration is determined by economic factors, first of all income:...

The paper analyzes the incidence, the severity and the determinants of household poverty inUkraine during transition using two comparable surveys from 1996 and 2004. We measurepoverty using income and consumption and contrast the effects of various poverty lines...

This paper investigates the economic and social determinants affecting the well-being of temporary migrants before, during and after the financial crisis. Exploiting unique panel data which cover migration spells from Tajikistan between 2001 and 2011, we find that migrants earn less but stay...

Does a high regional concentration of immigrants of the same ethnicity affect immigrant children's acquisition of host-country language skills and educational attainment? We exploit the exogenous placement of guest workers from five ethnicities across German regions during the 1960s and 1970s in...

This paper investigates the economic fortunes of coerced vs. free workers in a global supply chain. To identify the differential treatment of otherwise similar workers we resort to a unique exogenous labor demand shock that affects wages in voluntary and involuntary labor relations differently....

Radical changes have been implemented to pension schemes across the UK public sector from April 2015. This paper simulates how these changes will affect the lifetime pension and how the negotiated pension changes compare across six public sector schemes by level of education. Specifically, we...

Contemporary cities are becoming more and more diverse in population as a result of immigration. Research also shows that within cities residential neighborhoods are becoming ethnically more diverse, but that residential segregation has remained persistently high. High levels of segregation are...

This paper assesses the long-term subjective well-being and mental health toll of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 in the general Ukrainian population and estimates the monetary differential necessary to compensate victims of the catastrophe. The analysis is based on two nationally representative...

Recent controversy has surrounded the relative value of public and private sector remuneration. We define a comprehensive measure of Total Reward (TR) which includes not just pay, but pensions and other 'benefits in kind', evaluate it as the present value of the sum of all these payments over...