Emigration and wages: The EU enlargement experiment

Arbeitspapier

This paper studies the impact of a large emigration wave on real wages in the source country. Following EU enlargement in 2004, a large share of the workforce of the Central and Eastern Europe emigrated to Western Europe. Using data from Lithuania for the calibration of a factor demand model I show that emigration had a significant short-run impact on real wages in the source country. In particular, emigration led to a change in the wage distribution between young and old workers. The wages of young workers increased by 6%, whereas the wages of old workers decreased by around 1%. On the contrary, I find no effect on the wage distribution between workers of different education levels.

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• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Nota di Lavoro ; No. 76.2011

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; International Migration ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration ; Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics
• Subject: Emigration ; EU Enlargement ; European Integration ; Wage Distribution

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Elsner, Benjamin
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)
• (where): Milano
• (when): 2011

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/53161