Home-ownership and Economic Performance of Immigrants in Germany

This paper analyzes the home-ownership gap between native and immigrant households in Germany, paying particular attention to the assimilation process of immigrant households.A double cohort approach is applied to investigate the effect of the duration of residence in Germany on the homeownership probability of immigrant households.Moreover, focusing on homeowners, differences in the housing quality between native and immigrant households are being examined.The estimates indicate that immigrant households are less likely to own their primary residence than comparable native households. Since the effect of the duration of residence in Germany on the home-ownership probability turns out to be insignificant, the empirical findings suggest that an assimilation process in home-ownership between native and immigrant households does not take place. Finally, differences in housing quality measures become insignificant after controlling for socioeconomic characteristics and contextual factors of native and immigrant households in an interacted model.Home-ownership, International Migration, Assimilation

Wealth and Asset Holdings of Immigrants in Germany

This paper examines the relative wealth position and the portfolio choices of immigrants in Germany. The empirical findings reveal significant differences in overall wealth and various wealth components between German natives and immigrants. Differences in real estate constitute the major part of different levels of net worth, indicating that disparities in home-ownership rates are responsible for the main part of the overall wealth gap. Moreover, migrants' degree of portfolio diversification is significantly lower than that of comparable natives. The results of a decomposition analysis suggest that differences in wealth and asset holdings may be explained by disparity in educational attainment to a sizable extent, while the effects of income differentials and differences in demographic characteristics are insignificant.International migration, wealth accumulation, decomposition analysis, multiple imputation

Determinants of Savings and Remittances – Empirical Evidence from Immigrants to Germany

This paper investigates the determinants of migrants’ financial transfers to their home country using German data.A double-hurdle model is applied to analyze the determinants of the propensity to send transfers abroad and the amount of transfers.The findings reveal that return intentions positively affect financial transfers of immigrants to their home country. Moreover, while the effect of the household size on migrants’ transfers abroad turns out to be significantly negative, remittances are higher if close relatives live in the sending country. Finally,Vuong-tests indicate that the double-hurdle model is the correct specification for the analysis of migrants’ savings and remittances rather than the conventional Tobit model usually applied in the literature.International migration, savings, remittances, double-hurdle model

There Goes the Neighborhood? People’s Attitudes and the Effects of Immigration to Australia

This paper compares the effects of immigration flows on economic outcomes and crime levels to the public opinion about these effects using individual and regional data for Australia. We employ an instrumental variables strategy to account for non-random location choices of immigrants and find that immigration has no adverse effects on regional unemployment rates, median incomes, or crime levels. This result is in line with the economic effects that people typically expect but does not confirm the public opinion about the contribution of immigration to higher crime levels, suggesting that Australians overestimate the effect of immigration on crime.effects of immigration, attitudes towards immigrants, international migration

Student Loan Reforms for German Higher Education: Financing Tuition Fees

Due to the unknown future economic situation of students, private banks are unwilling to provide student loans in the absence of collateral. This market failure requires government intervention to prevent socially sub-optimal and regressive outcomes. Income contingent loans, whose repayment depends on the borrowers' future capacity to pay, can offer a possible solution to this problem. In this paper, we compare alternative income contingent loans for financing tuition fees at German universities. Several German states have introduced tuition fees at their universities since summer 2007 and publicly owned banks have started to offer student loans to cover these fees. Our empirical findings highlight the benefits of income contingent loans and demonstrate that tuition fees at German universities could increase considerably if an income contingent loan system would be implemented to provide students with the financial resources they need to pay these fees.Educational Finance; Student Financial Aid; State and Federal Aid; Government Expenditures on Education

Inter-ethnic Marriage and Partner Satisfaction

This paper investigates immigrant assortative mating and relationship satisfaction. Using a modified random effects ordered probit model, the paper demonstrates that spouses of mixed couples are significantly less satisfied with their partner than native-only and foreign-only couples.international migration, assortative mating, partner satisfaction

People‘s Attitudes and the Eff ects of Immigration to Australia

This paper compares the eff ects of immigration fl ows on economic outcomes and crime levels to the public opinion about these eff ects using individual and regional data for Australia. We employ an instrumental variables strategy to account for non-random location choices of immigrants and fi nd that immigration has no adverse eff ects on regional unemployment rates, median incomes, or crime levels. This result is in line with the economic eff ects that people typically expect but does not confi rm the public opinion about the contribution of immigration to higher crime levels, suggesting that Australians overestimate the eff ect of immigration on crime.International migration; eff ects of immigration; attitudes towards immigrants

The Savings Behavior of Temporary and Permanent Migrants in Germany

This paper examines the relative savings position of migrant households in West Germany, paying particular attention to differences between temporary and permanent migrants.Our findings reveal significant differences in the savings rates between foreign-born and German-born individuals. These differences disappear, however, for temporary migrants, if their remittances are taken into account. The results of a decomposition analysis indicate that differences in the savings rate between Germans and foreigners can mainly be attributed to differences in observable characteristics.We do not find strong evidence for an adjustment of the savings rate between immigrants and natives over time.Savings, Migration

Distributional Changes in the Gender Wage Gap

This paper analyzes changes in wage differentials between white men and white women over the period 1993-2006 across the entire wage distribution using Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data. We decompose distributional changes in the gender wage gap to assess the contribution of observed characteristics measuring individual productivity. We find that the gender wage gap narrowed by more than 13 percent at the lowest decile and by less than 4 percent at the highest decile. The decomposition results indicate that changes in the gender wage gap are mainly attributable to changes in educational attainment at the top of the wage distribution, while a sizeable part of the changes is due to work history changes at the bottom. Our findings suggest that the educational success of women could reduce the gender wage gap at the bottom of the distribution both before and during the 1990s but did not trigger a strong decline at the top of the distribution until today.gender wage gap, decomposition analysis, unconditional quantile regression

Decomposing the Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment

This paper analyzes the contribution of the socioeconomic and demographic composition of the pool of employed and unemployed individuals to the dynamics of the labor market in different phases of the business cycle. Using individual level data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), we decompose differences in employment status transition rates between economic upswings and downturns into composition effects and behavioral effects. We find that overall composition effects play a minor role for the cyclicality of the unemployment outflow rate, although the contribution of the duration of unemployment is significant. In contrast, composition effects dampen the cyclicality of the unemployment inflow rate considerably. We further observe that the initially positive contribution of composition effects to a higher unemployment outflow rate turns negative over the course of the recession.gross worker flows, unemployment duration, decomposition analysis, Blinder-Oaxaca