Attitudes Towards Immigrants and Relative Deprivation: The Case of a Middle-Income Country

This paper applies the concept of group relative deprivation to studying formation of attitudes towards immigrants in a middle-income country’s setting. It finds that the feeling of relative deprivation adversely affects the attitudes, even when the potential endogeneity of relative deprivation is taken into account. Furthermore, relative deprivation matters only for natives who subjectively underestimate their well-being, but not for those who overestimate it. When considering other forms of natives’ perceived disadvantage, such as in terms of employment, access to education or medical facilities, there is a weak evidence that only perceived disadvantage in obtaining medical aid negatively affects the attitudes.attitudes towards immigrants; relative deprivation; subjective well-being

Assimilation and Integration of Immigrants in Europe

This paper documents assimilation of immigrants in European destinations along cultural, civic, and economic dimensions, distinguishing by immigrants' generation, duration of stay, and origin. Based on the European Social Survey, it suggests that assimilation may have multiple facets, and take place at different speed depending on the outcome in question. While assimilation along some economic and cultural outcomes may be correlated, such correlations are not systematic, and imply that progress on some dimensions may compensate the lack of progress on other dimensions; and also that a big discrepancy in one dimension is not necessarily a handicap, or an impediment, for assimilation on other grounds. Correlation of immigrants' outcomes and specific policies aimed at immigrants' integration are rather disparate, raising further questions regarding both their effectiveness and differentiated effect on various aspects of life.assimilation, integration, migration policies, Europe

Religiosity and Migration: Travel into One's Self versus Travel across Cultures

This paper examines differences in religious behaviors of the native born and immigrants in Europe, measured as self-reported religiosity, frequency of praying, and frequency of church attendance. Using the European Social Survey, we first show that, on average, religiosity of immigrants is higher than that of the native born, even among those without a religious affiliation. We test hypotheses that can explain these observations. Differences in individual characteristics, such as age, education, income, marital status, and notably denominations, partly account for the overall differences. Religiosity of immigrants declines with duration in the destination. Both origin and destination country characteristics, such as economic development, religious pluralism, religious freedom, and societal attitudes towards religion are important predictors of religiosity. These external factors are able to fully explain the difference in church attendance between immigrants and the native born.economics of religion, religiosity, immigrants, secularization, culture, integration

Foreign Direct Investment and Growth in Transition Economies

Recent studies of developing countries have suggested that the effectiveness of foreign direct investment (FDI) as spur to econo mic growth depends on the availability of "human capital" or skilled labour in a host country. In other words, it is primarily the synergy between FDI and human capital — rather than FDI itself — that acts as a strong stimulant to growth. Since many transition economies such as Ukraine have abundant human capital, this implies that policies that encourage FDI may be very beneficial in facilitating economic restructuring and stimulating growth. This paper provides a thorough empirical investigation of this issue by examining the experience of Ukraine and other transitional economies. The paper provides an overview of Ukraine’s experience with FDI and growth before systematically analyzing the connection between these variables for a panel of transition economies. While the paper finds deficiencies in earlier work examining the synergy between FDI and human capital, it finds interesting evidence that is consistent with the synergy hypothesis for transition economies. Further, the analysis also suggests that there is a complementary — rather than substitute — relationship between FDI and domestic investment. Thus, the presence of FDI may provide new learning opportunities for those making domestic investments and visa versa. The possibility that it is not large flows of FDI that cause high economic growth rates, but strong growth that acts as a magnet for FDI is also investigated. While the paper shows that there is little empirical evidence of such reverse causation in transition economies, it also reveals that there is little evidence that FDI stimulates economic growth beyond the current year. This lack of persistence in the benefits of FDI in transition economies suggests that there may be room for policy initiatives to increase the efficacy of FDI.foreign direct investment, spillovers from FDI, human capital complementarities, transition economies, growth

Assimilation and integration of immigrants in Europe

This paper documents assimilation of immigrants in European destinations along cultural, civic, and economic dimensions, distinguishing by immigrants' generation, duration of stay, and origin. Based on the European Social Survey, it suggests that assimilation may have multiple facets, and take place at different speed depending on the outcome in question. While assimilation along some economic and cultural outcomes may be correlated, such correlations are not systematic, and imply that progress on some dimensions may compensate the lack of progress on other dimensions; and also that a big discrepancy in one dimension is not necessarily a handicap, or an impediment, for assimilation on other grounds. Correlation of immigrants' outcomes and specific policies aimed at immigrants' integration are rather disparate, raising further questions regarding both their effectiveness and differentiated effect on various aspects of life

Coverage of employment protection legislation

Abstract This paper documents the construction of a novel database on coverage of workers by employment protection legislation (EPL), across over 90 countries around 2010. Coverage is shown to be an important, yet largely neglected, aspect of employment protection institution, complementing our knowledge about the protection level afforded by this institution. Our findings suggest that while coverage of employees across the world is generally high, coverage of all employed workers exhibits a substantial variation across countries in different regions and at different stages of development, reflecting the fact that wage employment still represents only a small proportion of total employment in developing countries. Our preliminary results indicate that there may not necessarily be a trade-off between the level of protection afforded by EPL and the proportion of workers legally covered by these rules. The results suggest that failure to account for EPL coverage in studies looking at aggregate effects of EPL level may lead to overestimating the importance of EPL, with this overestimation being especially large in lower-income countries. JEL Classification: J5, J8</jats:p

Religiosity and migration: Travel into one's self versus travel across cultures

This paper examines differences in religious behaviors of the native born and immigrants in Europe, measured as self-reported religiosity, frequency of praying, and frequency of church attendance. Using the European Social Survey, we first show that, on average, religiosity of immigrants is higher than that of the native born, even among those without a religious affiliation. We test hypotheses that can explain these observations. Differences in individual characteristics, such as age, education, income, marital status, and notably denominations, partly account for the overall differences. Religiosity of immigrants declines with duration in the destination. Both origin and destination country characteristics, such as economic development, religious pluralism, religious freedom, and societal attitudes towards religion are important predictors of religiosity. These external factors are able to fully explain the difference in church attendance between immigrants and the native born

Civic Participation of Immigrants: Culture Transmission and Assimilation

This paper employs the European Social Survey and the World Values Survey to empirically investigate civic participation of immigrants from fifty-four countries of origin to the European Union. Three sets of issues are addressed in this paper. First, the paper aims at understanding what factors determine civic participation of immigrants at large. Second, it seeks to shed light on differences and similarities between participation outcomes of immigrants and natives. The main part of the paper is dedicated to testing culture transmission and culture assimilation hypothesis with respect to civic participation. Culture assimilation is analysed within the traditional synthetic cohort methodology, and also by testing whether the levels of immigrants’ civic participation depend on the levels of natives’ civic participation in the same countries. Culture transmission is looked at by relating the levels of participation of nonmigrants in countries of origin to participation outcomes of those who migrate. In addition, the effect of other country of origin and country of destination characteristics on immigrants’ civic participation is investigated. The issue of immigrants’ self-selection is addressed by matching immigrants to otherwise similar natives and compatriots who did not migrate. The study finds limited evidence for the transmission of participation culture across borders, although certain home country characteristics continue influencing participation behaviour of individuals after migration: it is those from industrialized, net immigration, culturally more homogeneous countries who tend to participate more. On the other hand, the culture of current place of residence matters most in that by observing higher (lower) participation patterns among natives immigrants tend to participate more (less)

Attitudes Towards Immigrants and Relative Deprivation: The Case of a Middle-Income Country

This paper applies the concept of group relative deprivation to studying formation of attitudes towards immigrants in a middle-income country’s setting. It finds that the feeling of relative deprivation adversely affects the attitudes, even when the potential endogeneity of relative deprivation is taken into account. Furthermore, relative deprivation matters only for natives who subjectively underestimate their well-being, but not for those who overestimate it. When considering other forms of natives’ perceived disadvantage, such as in terms of employment, access to education or medical facilities, there is a weak evidence that only perceived disadvantage in obtaining medical aid negatively affects the attitudes

Foreign Direct Investment and Growth in Transition Economies

Recent studies of developing countries have suggested that the effectiveness of foreign direct investment (FDI) as spur to econo mic growth depends on the availability of "human capital" or skilled labour in a host country. In other words, it is primarily the synergy between FDI and human capital — rather than FDI itself — that acts as a strong stimulant to growth. Since many transition economies such as Ukraine have abundant human capital, this implies that policies that encourage FDI may be very beneficial in facilitating economic restructuring and stimulating growth. This paper provides a thorough empirical investigation of this issue by examining the experience of Ukraine and other transitional economies. The paper provides an overview of Ukraine’s experience with FDI and growth before systematically analyzing the connection between these variables for a panel of transition economies. While the paper finds deficiencies in earlier work examining the synergy between FDI and human capital, it finds interesting evidence that is consistent with the synergy hypothesis for transition economies. Further, the analysis also suggests that there is a complementary — rather than substitute — relationship between FDI and domestic investment. Thus, the presence of FDI may provide new learning opportunities for those making domestic investments and visa versa. The possibility that it is not large flows of FDI that cause high economic growth rates, but strong growth that acts as a magnet for FDI is also investigated. While the paper shows that there is little empirical evidence of such reverse causation in transition economies, it also reveals that there is little evidence that FDI stimulates economic growth beyond the current year. This lack of persistence in the benefits of FDI in transition economies suggests that there may be room for policy initiatives to increase the efficacy of FDI