In Germany, employees are generally obliged to participate in the public health insurance system, where coverage is universal, co-payments and deductibles are moderate, and premia are based on income. However, they may buy private insurance instead if their income exceeds the compulsory...

We investigate how, in temporary economic hardship, agents change their consumption of health services, and how this depends on whether the service is universally free-of-charge visits to GP's or privately co-financed dental care. We find that own expenditures for dental care decrease. The...

Primary healthcare institutions (PHIs) in China have experienced a sizable decline in medical services in recent years. Despite the large regional disparities in China, there is a lack of evidence on the differential patterns of medical services offered by PHIs, especially from a spatial...

Rural-urban migrants in China appear to prefer nearby destination cities. To gain a better understanding of this phenomenon, we build a simple model in which migrants from rural areas choose among potential destination cities to maximize utility. The distance between a migrant's home village and...

This paper focuses on the determinants of self-employment among rural to urban migrants in China. Two self-selection mechanisms are analysed: the first relates to the manner in which migrants choose self-employment or paid work based on the potential gains from either type of employment; the...

Due to ageing population and low birth rates, the European Union (EU) will need to import foreign labour in the next decades. In this context, the EU neighbouring countries (ENC) are the main countries of origin and transit of legal and illegal migration towards Europe. Their economic, cultural...

This paper examines the impact of the immigration of foreigners on domestic labour mobility. Since David Card's seminal study on the regional labour market impact of the Mariel Boatlift it is controversial whether domestic labour mobility equilibrates economic conditions across cities and...

Since the reform and opening up in 1978, China has begun a period of rapid industrialization and urbanization. Along with an increasing number of rural people migrating to urban area for jobs, there are a considerable number of elderly parents left behind in the rural area. The impact of...