Real Exchange Rates and the Earnings of Immigrants

Arbeitspapier

Higher price levels in the destination relative to the origin increase the effective real wages of immigrants, thereby affecting immigrants' reservation and entry wages as well as their subsequent career trajectories. Based on micro-level longitudinal administrative data from Germany and exploiting within-country and across-cohort variations in the real exchange rate (RER) between Germany and countries that newly joined the European Union in the 2000s, we find that immigrants arriving with high RERs initially settle for lower paying jobs than comparable immigrants arriving with low RERs. In subsequent periods, however, wages of high RER arrivals catch up to that of their low RER counterparts, convergence achieved primarily through changes to better paying occupations and firms. Our findings thus point to the persistent regional price differences as one possible reason for immigrants' downgrading, with implications for immigrants' career profiles and the assessment of labor market impacts of immigration.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: CReAM Discussion Paper Series ; No. 10/21

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration ; Development Planning and Policy: Trade Policy; Factor Movement; Foreign Exchange Policy
• Thema: real exchange rate ; reservation wage ; immigrant downgrading ; earnings assimilation

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Dustmann, Christian ; Ku, Hyejin ; Surovtseva, Tanya
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Centre for Research & Analysis of Migration (CReAM), Department of Economics, University College London
• (wo): London
• (wann): 2021

Weitere Informationen

• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:41 MEZ