Do the best go west? An analysis of the self-selection of employed East-West migrants in Germany

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractSince 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 IABemployment sample, we find however that employed East-West migrants remain positively self-selected with respect to unobserved abilities. This result is consistent with the predictions of our extended Roy model which considers moving costs that are negatively correlated with labour market abilities of individuals. Moreover, we find that wage differentials as well as differences in employment opportunities are the central forces which drive East-West migration after unification.

Interne Migration, regionale Arbeitsmarktdynamik und Implikationen für Ost-West-Disparitäten: Ergebnisse auf Basis einer Panel VAR Analyse

“…Okun, 1968, Muth, 1971, Salvatore, 1980, Bilger et al, 1991, and the large literature following Carlino-Mills, 1987) or time-series perspective (see Blanchard & Katz, 1992, Decressin & 3 Subsequent micro studies mainly focused on qualifying the theoretically unsatisfactory result with respect to wage rates: Schwarze (1996) for example shows that by using the expected rather than actual wage rate the results turn significant. The latter is also confirmed in Brücker & Trübswetter (2004) focusing on the role of self-selection in East-West migration. In a continuation of Burda (1993), Burda et al (1998) also indicates a significant, however non-linear influence of household income.…”

“…Both for German East-West and Italian South-North migration flows a high degree of "immobility" was found to coexist with large regional labour market disparities. 26 To find an appropriate answer to this puzzle of insufficient migration to equilibrate regional labour market disparities is of special importance for determining the role of migratory movement in the process of regional economic development and income convergence. A first check for the empirical performance of our PVAR(1) model in the light of East-West migration is thus to compare the actual and (in-sample) predicted net migration flows for the involved state pairs.…”

The Effect of Ethnic Clustering on Migrant Integration in Germany

“…Figure 1 shows the share of foreigners in Germany on the post code level for the year 2010. In general, there are far less immigrants in East Germany, which is likely due to the worse labour market situation there (Aretz, 2013;Brücker and Trübswetter, 2007). Immigrants in Germany also tend to live in the large cities, in particular around Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt and Stuttgart as well as in the Ruhr Area.…”

Internal Migration, Regional Labour Market Dynamics and Implications for German East-West Disparities - Results from a Panel VAR

“…Both for German East-West and Italian South-North migration flows a high degree of "immobility" was found to coexist with large regional labour market disparities. 26 To find an appropriate answer to this puzzle of insufficient migration to equilibrate regional 26 For a discussion of the Italian case see e.g. Fachin (2007) or Etzo (2007).…”