The Impact of Czech Commuters on the German Labour Market

Michael Moritz

Prague Economic Papers, 2011, vol. 2011, issue 1, 40-58

Abstract: In the process of European integration, regions close to a border are especially affected by labour market liberalisation. Using data from the IAB employment subsample (IABS) and the employment register (BeH) for the period before and after the opening of the border between Germany and the Czech Republic (1980-2001) I shed light on the development of wages. Both German employees and Czech commuters in the western German borderland of Bavaria are compared to other domestic and foreign workers. At the beginning of the 1990s, German legislation was relatively unrestrictive, so that it was quite easy for Czech workers to obtain a work permit beyond the border. Most of them had only low education. More than 5% of the eastern Bavarian male, low-skilled workforce was reported Czech in the early 1990s. Surprisingly, precisely in this period German employees seem to have benefited from integration, but suffered in the years afterwards, when regulations on labour permits for commuters were far stricter.

Keywords: regional labour markets; international migration; cross-border commuting; wage differentials (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.386

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