A number of studies have established a positive effect of migrants' language proficiency on their productivity. It has been argued that these estimates are upward-biased because of the presence of unobserved heterogeneity. To obtain an accurate estimate of language effects is important since it...

We analyse the labour supply of 16-year-old British children together with the cash transfers made to them by their parents. We develop a theoretical model with an altruistic parent and a selfish child, which serves as a basis for the empirical specification in which labour supply and transfers...

If migrants return to their origin countries, two questions arise which are of immediate economic interest for both immigration and emigration country: What determines their optimal migration duration, and what are the activities migrants choose after a return. Little research has been devoted...

This paper studies parental investment in education and intergenerational earnings mobility for father-son pairs with native and foreign born fathers. We illustrate within a simple model that for immigrants, investment in their children is related to their return migration probability. In our...

This paper presents a life cycle model for the demand for health, and derives empirical specifications that distinguish between permanent and transitory wage responses. Using panel data, we estimate dynamic health and health input demand equations. We find evidence of negative transitory wage...

This paper uses two recent UK surveys to investigate labour market performance, the determi-nants of language proficiency, and the effect of language on earnings and employment prob-abilities of non-white immigrants. Our results show that language acquisition, employment prob-abilities, as well...

Hostility towards minorities may sometimes have economic rather than racial motives. Labour market fears, or concerns about the welfare system, are often believed to manifest themselves in hostile attitudes towards population groups that are considered to be competitors for these resources. The...

This paper investigates educational attainment and economic behaviour of ethnic minority immigrants and their children in Britain. Despite their strong educational achievements, ethnic minority immigrants and their descendants exhibit lower employment probabilities than their white native born...

This paper studies the intergenerational mobility in earnings and education for father-son pairs with native and foreign born fathers. We develop a simple model which illustrates that a higher probability of a permanent migration of the parent increases educational investments into the child....

This paper analyzes the evolution of the attainment gap between white British born and ethnic minority pupils throughout compulsory schooling, from the age of 5 to 16. At the start of school, pupils from most ethnic groups substantially lag behind White British pupils, but these gaps decline for...