Do Immigrants Take the Jobs of Native Workers?

In this paper, we focus on the short-run adjustments taking place at the workplace level when immigrants are employed. Specifically, we analyse whether individual native workers are replaced or displaced by the employment of immigrants within the same narrowly defined occupations at the workplace. For this purpose, we estimate a competing risks duration model for job spells of native workers that distinguishes between job-to-job and job-to-unemployment transitions. In general, we do not find any signs of native workers being displaced by immigrants. Furthermore, we find only very limited signs of replacement of native workers by immigrants. Instead, in particular low-skilled native workers are less likely to lose or leave their jobs when the firms hire immigrants.immigration, adjustment costs, displacement, job spells, duration model

Do immigrants take the jobs of native workers?

In this paper, we focus on the short-run adjustments taking place at the workplace level when immigrants are employed. Specifically, we analyse whether individual native workers are replaced or displaced by the employment of immigrants within the same narrowly defined occupations at the workplace. For this purpose, we estimate a competing risks duration model for job spells of native workers that distinguishes between job-to-job and job-to-unemployment transitions. In general, we do not find any signs of native workers being displaced by immigrants. Furthermore, we find only very limited signs of replacement of native workers by immigrants. Instead, in particular low-skilled native workers are less likely to lose or leave their jobs when the firms hire immigrants

What Happens to the Employment of Native Co-Workers when Immigrants are Hired?

While immigration is unlikely to affect the employment of native workers in the long run, employment of immigrants may be associated with significant short-run adjustment costs for native workers as they have to fi nd alternative employment or are temporarily pushed into unemployment. In this paper, we therefore study the impact of immigrants at the workplace on the employment of native co-workers using a rich matched worker-fi rm data set for Denmark. Estimation of a single risk duration model for job spells of native workers shows that job separation rates increase if more immigrants are hired, especially when it comes to immigrants from Eastern Europe and less developed countries (LDCs). Furthermore, in a competing risks duration model, we fi nd that while immigrants from LDCs increase the unemployment risk for native workers, immigrants from Eastern Europe instead increase the job change probability of native workers. Thus, adjustment costs for native workers are more likely in the case where LDC immigrants are hired. Finally, we fi nd that the results only apply for low-skilled native workers

Immigrants at the Workplace and the Wages of Native Workers

We propose a complementary approach to analyze the impact of immigration on the wages of native workers. Using linked employer-employee data from Denmark for a relatively long time period (1993-2004), we study the consequences of an increased use of immigrants at the most disaggregate level – the workplace. We find that an increase in the share of workers from less developed countries at the workplace has a signifi cantly negative effect on the wages of natives – also when controlling for potential endogeneity using both fi xed effects and IV. The use of immigrants from more developed countries also appears to be correlated with wages. However, these correlations disappear when controlling for unobserved fi rm and worker characteristics and are thus likely to reflect selection rather than a causal effect of these immigrants. Finally, we find a positive impact on the wages of native workers from having Eastern European co-workers

Do Immigrants Affect Firm-Specific Wages?

In this paper, we propose and test a novel effect of immigration on the wages of native workers. Existing studies have focused on the wage effects that result from changes in the aggregate labour supply in a competitive labour market. We argue that if labour markets are not fully competitive, the use of immigrants may also affect wage formation at the most disaggregate level – the workplace. Using linked employeremployee data, we find that an increased use of workers from less developed countries has a significantly negative effect on the wages of native workers at the workplace – also when controlling for potential endogeneity of the immigrant share using both fixed effects and IV. Additional evidence suggests that this effect works at least partly through a general effect on the wage norm in the firm of hiring employees with poor outside options (the immigrants)

Does Economic Self-Interest Matter

In this paper, we re-examine the role of economic self-interest in shaping people’s attitudes towards immigration, using data from the European Social Survey 2002/2003. Compared to the existing literature, there are two main contributions of the present paper. First, we develop a more powerful test of the hypothesis that a positive relationship between education and attitudes towards immigration reflects economic self-interest in the labour market. Second, we develop an alternative and more direct test of whether economic self-interest matters for people’s attitudes towards immigration. We find that while the "original" relationship between education and attitudes found in the literature is unlikely to reflect economic self-interest, there is considerable evidence of economic self-interest when using the more direct test

Explaining cross-country differences in attitudes towards immigration in the EU-15

In this paper, we use data from the first two rounds of the European Social Survey to analyze the extent to which differences in average attitudes towards immigration across the EU-15 countries may be explained by differences in socioeconomic characteristics and individually perceived consequences of immigration, using an extension of a decomposition technique developed by Fairlie (2005). We find that despite the significant effects of socioeconomic characteristics on attitudes, differences in the distributions of these characteristics can only explain a modest share of the cross-country variation in average attitudes. A larger part can be explained by differences in perceived consequences of immigration, but the main part is still left unexplained. Apart from providing useful input for policy makers working in the area of immigration policy, this raises a number of questions for further research for which the ESS data can be successfully applied. Attitudes, Immigration, Cross-country difference

Er Danskere Specielle?

Denne artikel belyser holdninger til immigration blandt borgere i Danmark og de øvrige EU-15 lande - herunder holdningerne til immigration, der følger af den seneste EU-udvidelse. Det analyseres, hvilke faktorer der ligger til frund for disse holdninger, samt i hvilken udstrækning danskere afviger fra EU-gennemsnittet. Den typiske dansker er lidt mere skeptisk overfor immigration end andre europæere. Danskerne afskiller sig desuden ved, at forholdsvis få forbinder øget immigration med negative konsekvenser for arbejdsmarkedet, men forholdsvis mange forbinder det med højere omkostninger for velfærdsstaten. Når der tages hensyn til opfattelserne af de økonomiske konsekvenser af immigration, kommer Danmark til at fremstå som et væsentligt mere immigrationsskeptisk land, end hvad der kommer til udtryk i de ukorrigerede holdninger

Omfang, udvikling og konsekvenser

textabstractWe propose a consistent utility-based framework to jointly explain a household's decisions on purchase incidence, brand choice and purchase quantity. The approach differs from other approaches, currently available in the literature, as it is able to take into account consumption dynamics. In the model, households derive utility from consumption, and they relate their purchase behavior to consumption planning. We illustrate our model for yogurt purchases, and show that our model yields important additional insights. One such insight is that the reservation price of households is not fixed, but depends on the available inventory stock. Furthermore, we find that promotional activities increase sales through more purchases in the product category and brand switching, but the effect through larger purchase quantities is limited