Native-immigrant wage differentials in Greece: discrimination and assimilation

Abstract: This paper applies the Blinder-Oaxaca methodology in order to decompose the average earnings differentials between Greek workers and different groups of immigrants. We use information about 8,429 individuals of which 1,185 are immigrants. The data are drawn from the Greek Labor Force Survey (2009). The main objective is to explore how much of the differential is explained by differences in observed characteristics. We also investigate the effect that assimilation has on the immigrants’ earnings. Our results provide empirical evidence that the part of the wage gap due to differences in the coefficients is largest for immigrants originating from non-EU countries and negative for those immigrants who terminated education in Greece

The impact of immigration on the greek labor market

Abstract: This paper applies the “spatial correlations” methodology in order to investigate the impact of immigrants on the unemployment rates of natives. We use information on 13 local labor markets for the 1988-2008 period. The data are drawn from the Greek Labor Force Survey. We address the endogeneity of immigrants’ location choices and measurement error by using an instrumental variables methodology. Our results provide empirical evidence that immigrants do not displace the indigenous workers. Also, there is evidence that: (i) medium skilled unemployment declines with immigration and (ii) labor force participation rises due to immigratio

Immigration and far-right voting: Evidence from Greece

In this paper we analyze the impact of immigration on Greek politics over the 2004-2012 period, exploiting panel data on 51 Greek regional units. We account for potential endogenous clustering of migrants into more “tolerant” regions by using a shift-share imputed instrument, based on their allocation in 1991. Overall, our results are consistent with idea that immigration is positively associated with the vote share of extreme-right parties. This finding appears to be robust to alternative controls, sample restrictions and different estimation methods. We do not find supportive evidence for the conjecture that natives “vote with their feet”, i.e. move away from regions with high immigrant concentrations. We also find that the political success of the far-right comes at the expense of “Leftist” parties. Importantly, concerns on criminality and competition for jobs and public resources appear to drive our findings

Education and wage inequality before and during the fiscal crisis: A quantile regression analysis for Greece 2006-2016

The Greek labour market has undergone dramatic changes during the last 10 years. Wage inequality, especially at the bottom end of the earnings distribution, increased sharply. At the same time, the past trend towards educational upgrading of the labour force has further been boosted. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between education and the dispersion of male earnings, using Labour Force Survey data for years 2006 and 2016. We address the issue of unobserved heterogeneity by employing a quantile regression approach. We also account for potential endogeneity by employing the IVQR approach introduced by Chernozhukov and Hansen (2008). Our best estimates suggest that education exerts a negative effect on earnings inequality in the pre-crisis period. However, during the recession, the returns to education appear to be significantly higher at the upper end of the wage spectrum, thereby contributing to increased inequality. We also find evidence that the impact of education on the dispersion of earnings is stronger in the private sector. Finally, we also account for the incidence of over-education. Interestingly, the penalty that overqualified workers suffer, declines across the conditional earnings distribution and disappears completely at the highest quantile in 2016

Does income inequality matter for economic growth? : An empirical investigation

In this paper we empirically investigate a possible effect of income inequality on growth. Using a panel of 126 countries for the time-span from 1968 to 2007 we report a positive relationship between income inequality and growth. That occurs through both the taxation and the human capital channels. We estimate our model with several estimation techniques such as fixed effects, GMM and Two stages least squares. Our results suggest that a policy maker has to take into account a certain trade off between making the distribution of income more equal and raising the economy's wealth

Immigration, Unemployment and Growth: Empirical Evidence from Greece

Abstract: This paper applies cointegration analysis and Granger non-causality tests in order to identify the direction of causality between migration in Greece and two macroeconomic variables: GDP and unemployment. We use annual data for the 1980-2011 period. The data are drawn from the International Migration Statistics (OECD) and the International Monetary Fund Database (IMF). Our results provide empirical evidence that the growth rates of GDP and unemployment cause migration in Granger’s sense. On the contrary, evidence of reverse causality is not established

Do Immigrants Compete with Natives in the Greek Labour Market? Evidence from the Skill-Cell Approach Before and During the Great Recession

This study applies the skill-cell approach introduced by Borjas (2003) in order to identify the causal impact of immigration on the employment opportunities of resident workers, using data from two different samples, namely two waves of the Census of Population (1991 and 2001) and the Greek Labour Force Survey (1998-2015). Grouping workers in three education and eight experience classes at the national level, we find small adverse effects on the employment outcomes of natives, that are generally not sensitive to alternative education and experience classifications and when accounting for the effective experience of immigrants. However, as for the period between 1998 and 2015, our findings appear to be driven by the negative influence of immigration ascertained in the sub-period during the Great Recession. Remarkably, there is some evidence of complementarity when the pre-recession period (1998- 2007) is considered. The less-skilled natives, appear to be the group of workers which is more vulnerable to immigration. Our results also indicate that the Greek economy has the capacity to accommodate large immigration flows in the long-run, without significant effects. Finally, contrary to earlier studies, we do not find evidence consistent with the idea that migrants push natives towards complex, language-intensive tasks

Native-immigrant wage differentials in Greece: discrimination and assimilation

This paper applies the Blinder-Oaxaca methodology in order to decompose the average earnings differentials between Greek workers and different groups of immigrants. We use information about 8,429 individuals of which 1,185 are immigrants. The data are drawn from the Greek Labor Force Survey (2009). The main objective is to explore how much of the differential is explained by differences in observed characteristics. We also investigate the effect that assimilation has on the immigrants’ earnings. Our results provide empirical evidence that the part of the wage gap due to differences in the coefficients is largest for immigrants originating from non-EU countries and negative for those immigrants who terminated education in Greece. Also, there is evidence that: (i) post-migration human capital is a significant determinant of immigrants earnings and (ii) human capital acquired in the countries of origin is not perfectly transferable