How Immigration Grease Is Affected by Economic, Institutional and Policy Contexts: Evidence from EU Labor Markets

Martin Guzi (), Martin Kahanec and Lucia Mytna Kurekova

No 9108, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Theoretical arguments and previous country-level evidence indicate that immigrants are more fluid than natives in responding to changing labor shortages across countries, skill-groups or industries. The diversity across EU member states enables us to test this hypothesis across various institutional, economic and policy contexts. Drawing on the EU LFS and EU SILC datasets we study the relationship between residual wage premia as a measure of labor shortages in different skill-industry-country cells and the shares of migrants and natives working in these cells. We find that immigrants' responsiveness to labor market shortages exceeds that of natives in the EU15, in particular in member states with higher unemployment rates, higher levels of (recent) immigration, and more open immigration and integration policies; but also those with barriers to citizenship acquisition or family reunification. Whereas higher welfare expenditures seem to exert a lock-in effect, a comparison across different types of welfare states indicates that institutional complementarities neutralize that effect.

Keywords: institutions; labor supply; skill matching; migration; labor shortage; welfare state; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J24 J61 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Published - published in: Kyklos , 2018, 71 (2), 213-243

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Related works:
Journal Article: How Immigration Grease Is Affected by Economic, Institutional, and Policy Contexts: Evidence from EU Labor Markets (2018)
Working Paper: How Immigration Grease Is Affected by Economic, Institutional and Policy Contexts: Evidence from EU Labor Markets (2017)
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