Birthplace Diversity of the Workforce and Productivity Spill-overs in Firms

René Böheim, Gerard Horvath and Karin Mayr-Dorn

No 438, WIFO Working Papers from WIFO

Abstract: We analyse the effect of workforce composition by birthplace in Austrian firms on workers' wages. In our model, each worker's productivity may depend on whether the co-workers are of the same or of a different birthplace and wages depend therefore both on the relative size of workers' groups as well as on the production structure of firms. We derive empirically testable hypotheses about the effect of co-worker birthplace on wages using a stylised model of intra-firm spill-overs across worker groups. We find evidence for complementarities between workers of different birthplace in line with our model that persist (but become smaller in size) after we control for observable productivity characteristics such as occupation and work experience.

Keywords: Immigration; Labour force composition; Labour productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2012-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eff, nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Birthplace diversity of the workforce and productivity spill-overs in firms (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2012:i:438

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