|
on Economics of Human Migration |
| By: | Liu Cui (Zhejiang University); Yit Wey Liew (Sunway University); Muhammad Habibur Rahman (Durham University) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the economic and distributional effects of China’s National Pilot Program for Returnee Entrepreneurship, which encourages rural migrants to return to their hometowns for business creation and employment. Drawing on county-level socioeconomic indicators and nationally representative household survey data, we find that the program substantially boosted local economic development. Yet the gains were uneven as household-level analysis reveals a significant rise in within-county inequality. The mechanism operates through unequal access to capital, skills, and risk tolerance, enabling better-endowed households to capture a disproportionate share of the benefits. These findings underscore a key policy trade-off: while returnee entrepreneurship initiatives can stimulate aggregate growth, they may simultaneously exacerbate disparities within rural communities |
| Keywords: | Labor migration, Economic development, Inequality |
| JEL: | J61 O15 D63 L26 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dur:durham:2025_03 |
| By: | Tang, William (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether a native’s local exposure to immigration affects their generalised trust, in the context of Germany during the 2014-16 European Refugee Crisis. While the literature has extensively studied the impacts of immigration and the determinants of trust separately, scant empirical work has sought to causally link the two ; this is despite the existence of several plausible theoretical mechanisms. Exploiting the quasi-random allocation of refugees across Germany’s federal states, I employ two identification strategies : a Two-Way Fixed Effects model and a Difference-in-Differences model – the latter being my preferred approach, as it more effectively leverages the exogenous variation induced by the European Refugee Crisis. Across both models, I find no evidence of a causal effect of immigration exposure on trust. This result holds over a battery of robustness checks, including heterogeneity analysis, dynamic treatment effect specifications, and alternative scalings/measures of generalised trust. In doing so, I offer one of the first empirical attempts to causally bridge two previously separate literatures, and suggest that generalised trust may be less relevant than other social/cultural outcomes (e.g. political attitudes or crime perception) when designing immigration related policies. |
| Keywords: | immigration ; generalised trust ; European Refugee Crisis ; Germany ; social cohesion JEL classifications: J15 ; O15 ; J61 ; O10 ; Z13 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:wrkesp:90 |
| By: | Hainmueller, Jens; Marbach, Moritz; Hangartner, Dominik; Harder, Niklas; Vallizadeh, Ehsan |
| Abstract: | Governments continue to face challenges integrating refugees into the local labor market, and many past interventions have shown limited impact. This study examines the Job-Turbo program, a large-scale initiative launched by the German government in 2023 to accelerate employment among refugees—primarily individuals from Ukraine and eight other major countries of origin. Using monthly administrative panel data from Germany’s network of public employment service offices and a difference-in-differences design, we find that the program significantly increased both caseworker–refugee contact and job placements over a 23-month follow-up period. Among Ukrainian refugees, the exit-to-job rate nearly doubled. Effects were broad-based—spanning demographic subgroups, unemployment durations, skill levels, regions, and local labor-market conditions—and concentrated in regular, unsubsidized employment. The program also raised both the rate and share of sustained job placements, consistent with improved match quality. Other refugee groups saw meaningful gains as well, but increases in job placements were concentrated among males and in low-skilled jobs, with only limited effects for females. We detect no negative spillovers for German or other immigrant job seekers, finding no signs of either resource reallocation or displacement. The results offer insights for governments responding to displacement crises. They indicate that intensified job-search assistance---embedded within the early stage of integration and implemented at scale through public employment infrastructure---can meaningfully improve refugees' labor-market outcomes, even amid significant arrivals. |
| Date: | 2025–10–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:px9ew_v2 |
| By: | Rong Fu; Neeraj Kaushal; Felix Muchomba |
| Abstract: | We provide new evidence on earnings gaps between non-Hispanic White and three generations of Black workers in the United States during 1995-2024, using nationally representative data. Results reveal remarkable earnings advances among 2nd-generation Black immigrants, opposite to the well-documented widening in overall Black-White earnings gap. Among women, 2nd-generation Black workers have earnings higher than or equal to White women; among men, they earn 10% less at the median, but the gap vanishes at the top decile. The gap for 1st-generation Black men is shrinking, halving at the top decile; for 1st-generation Black women it shows initial widening then shrinking at the median. The native Black-White gap remains stubbornly high. Educational attainment largely drives 2nd-generation success, while residential patterns play a protective role for the 1st and 2nd generations. These findings provide critical data to set the record straight on the accomplishments of the highly successful and rising demography of Black immigrants and their US-born children. |
| JEL: | J0 J15 J3 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34327 |