In this note, we show that labour market integration can be a double-edged sword. In the presence of local human capital externalities, integration and the ensuing agglomeration of skilled labour can cause a decline in human capital and the total wage sum (net of education costs). In particular,...

Human capital theory predicts pecuniary returns to regional migration, but also positive self-selection of migrants. Therefore, when estimating the causal effect of migration one has to take care of potential self-selection. Several authors recommend using fixed effects models thereby...

Human capital theory predicts pecuniary returns to regional migration, but also positive self-selection of migrants. Therefore, when estimating the causal effect of migration one has to take care of potential self-selection. Several authors recommend using fixed effects models thereby...

This paper provides the first causal evidence on the impact of retirement on housing choices. Our empirical strategy exploits the discontinuity in the eligibility ages for state pension as an instrument for the endogenous retirement decision and controls for time-invariant individual...

We develop a model of double matching in the labor market and the social environment in order to explain different migration patterns in response to local economic shocks. This approach explains the different behaviors of workers in different groups, regions, or countries in an endogenous way by...

Since the inequality of earnings in East Germany has approached West German levels in the late 1990s, the standard Roy model predicts that a positive selection bias of East-West migrants should disappear. Using a switching regression model and data from the IAB employment sample, we find however...

During the African American Great Migration, millions of blacks left the Southern USA in favor of cities in the North. Despite the social and economic consequences of this migration, the question of its impacts on labor markets in the North has largely been overlooked in the literature. In this...

This study examines the effects of cross-border return migration on intertemporal and intergenerational transmission of socio-economic status across six new harmonized surveys from three Arab countries: Egypt (1998, 2006, 2012), Jordan (2010, 2016) and Tunisia (2014). We link individuals'...

This paper investigates the spatial connotations of job search methods of unemployed people, and in particular whether search methods lead to local vis-à-vis non-local jobs. The data set used is the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), a longitudinal survey collecting yearly interviews for...

If someone lives in an economically depressed place, they were probably born there. The presence of people with local ties – a preference to live in their birthplace – leads to smaller migration responses. Smaller migration responses to wage declines lead to lower real incomes and make real...