In late 2005 the Commission of the European Communities has presented a policy plan on legal migration including admission procedures capable of responding promptly to fluctuating demands for migrant labour. The EU migration policy plan stresses the importance of having a coherent agreement on...

The economic potential of ethnic and cultural diversity is often underestimated. This paper summarizes a number of recent studies which show that 'soft' factors such as attitudes, perceptions and identities - and in particular ethnic identities - significantly affect economic outcomes. More...

This paper analyzes intergenerational earnings mobility of immigrants and ethnic minorities in the UK. We use a two-sample technique and utilize the British Household Panel Survey for estimating the mobility coefficient. The estimation provides the evidence of differences in generational...

This paper analyzes the impact of demographic change on the labor force in Germany. First, to account for observable trends in labor force participation a cohort-component model is applied to project the future development of the labor force. Based on this trend scenario we assess the impact of...

This paper analyses the performance of migrants on the German labour market and its dependence on the tasks performed on their jobs. Recent work suggests quantifying the imperfect substitutability relationship between migrants and natives as a measure for the hurdles migrants have to face. Our...

Sprachkenntnisse in Deutsch und berufliche Abschlüsse sind wichtige Voraussetzungen für die wirtschaftliche und soziale Teilhabe von Personen mit Migrationshintergrund in Deutschland. Seit längerer Zeit gibt es daher spezifische Sprachförderangebote für unterschiedliche Zielgruppen. Mit der...

With the German Microcensus we study the second generation's educational attainment in Germany focusing on the descendants of classic labour migrants. Our results show that educational outcomes in terms of attending or completing the highest schooling track leading to the Abitur considerably...

Italian manufacturing ¯rms have been losing ground with respect to many of their European competitors. This paper presents some empirical evidence on the e®ects of innovation on employment growth and therefore on ¯rms' productivity with the goal of understanding the roots of such poor...

In this paper we investigate the way consumption changes around retirement in Italy. Using micro data covering the 1985-96 period, we find that consumption age patterns are similar to those found in the US and other developed countries, despite the much more wide-spread cohabitation of different...

This paper studies how heterogeneity in income dynamics affects the POUM hypothesis (the idea that poor people do not support high level of redistribution because they hope to be rich in the future). We consider a setting where individuals evaluate their expected future income using both their...