Ireland has experienced a remarkable change in its migratory patterns in recent years and has moved from experiencing large-scale emigration to receiving significant inflows. In this paper, we use data from a nationally representative sample of immigrants and natives drawn in 2005 to assess the...

The primary purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the papers within the economics literature that have examined the questions of immigrant welfare use and the responsiveness of immigrants to the incentives created by welfare systems. While our focus is largely on papers looking at the...

Increasing earnings inequality has been an important feature of the US and UK labour markets in recent years. The increase appears to be related to an increased demand for skilled labour and an increase in the returns to education. In this paper we examine what has happened to earnings...

Using data from a large-scale survey of employees in Ireland, we estimate the extent to which people who have emigrated from Ireland and returned earn more relative to comparable people who have never lived abroad. In so doing, we are testing the hypothesis that migration can be part of a...

We estimate the impact of immigration on the wages of natives in Ireland applying the technique proposed by Borjas (2003). Under this method, the labour market is divided into a number of skill cells, where the cells are defined by groups with similar levels of experience and education (or...

The core objective of this paper is to review the research which has been undertaken on estimating the economic impacts of immigration in Ireland. By way of providing context, the paper begins with an overview of Ireland’s recent experience of immigration and of the research which has been...

Higher rates of economic growth in recent years have led Ireland from being a country characterized by emigration to one where population inflows have become an important issue. This paper contains an analysis of one element of the current inflow. Drawing on data collected in 1998 on over 800...

Increasing earnings inequality has been an important feature of the US and UK labour markets in recent years. The increase appears to be related to an increased demand for skilled labour and an increase in the returns to education. In this paper we examine what has happened to earnings...

The skill levels of immigrants entering the United States has declined in recent decades, but most immigrants to the United States continue to be admitted on the basis of family contacts, without reference to labour market characteristics. This situation has given rise to a debate about the...

Much research has been conducted on immigration into Ireland in recent years using data from the Quarterly National Household Survey (QNHS), the official source for labour market data in Ireland. As it is known that the QNHS undercounts immigrants in Ireland, a concern exists over whether the...