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Ethnic groups tend to agglomerate and assemble, mostly in urban areas. While ethnic clustering is critically debated in societies and the consequences for economic outcomes are under debate in research, the process is not yet well understood. A separate literature has also examined the cultural and ethnic identity of immigrants and how these affect their economic performance and societal integration. However, an unexplored channel connects ethnic clustering with ethnic identity formation. Therefore this paper examines the role of ethnic geographic clustering in the sociocultural integration of immigrants. It employs survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, combined with disaggregated information at a low geographical level from the unexploited German full census of 1970 and 1987. We employ the exogenous placement of immigrants during their recruitment in the 1960s and 1970s and find that local co-ethnic concentration affects immigrants' cultural integration. Residential ethnic clustering strengthens immigrants' retention of an affiliation with their respective country of origin and weakens identification with the host society. The effects are nonlinear and only become significant at relatively high levels of co-ethnic concentration for the minority identity and at very low levels of local concentration for the majority identity. Our findings are robust to the use of an instrumental variable approach.

We characterize intergenerational social mobility in Germany using census data on the educational attainment of 526,000 children and their parents’ earnings. Our measure of educational attainment is the A-Level degree, a requirement for access to university and the most important qualification in the German education system. On average, a 10 percentile increase in the parental income rank is associated with a 5.2 percentage point increase in the probability to obtain an A-Level. This parental income gradient has not changed for the birth cohorts from 1980 to 1996, despite a largescale policy of expanding upper secondary education in Germany. At the regional level, there exists substantial variation in mobility estimates. Place effects, rather than sorting of households into different regions, seem to account for most of these geographical differences. Mobile regions are, among other aspects, characterized by high school quality and enhanced possibilities to obtain an A-Level degree in vocational schools. published

Shrinking populations have been gaining increasing attention, especially in postsocialist Eastern and Central European countries. While most studies focus on specific cities and regions, much less is known about the spatial dimension of population decline on the national level and the local factors determining spatially uneven population change. This study uses Lithuanian census data from the years 2001 to 2011 to get insight into the geography of population change for the whole country. Lithuania has experienced one of the highest rates of population decline in the world in the last decades. The predictive models show that regional factors have a strong effect on the variation in population change throughout the country but also reveal that sociodemographic and economic area characteristics play a role in the process of decline. Our results give little hope to those who would like to reverse the ongoing trends of population change and emphasize the need for spatial planning to cope with the changes. This is an approach which currently does not exist in practice in Lithuania., Straipsnyje analizuojami teritoriniai gyventojų skaičiaus kaitos dėsningumai Lietuvoje. Naudojant 2001 ir 2011 metų surašymų duomenis nustatyta, kad gyventojų skaičius mažėjo visoje Lietuvoje išskyrus priemiestines didžiųjų miestų zonas. Sudaryti regresiniai modeliai atskleidė, kad gyventojų skaičiaus kaitos mastas ir teritoriniai netolygumai daugiausiai yra susiję su padėties veiksniu, tačiau įtakos taip pat turi demografinė struktūra (gyventojų amžius ir namų ūkių struktūra), užimtumo struktūra (dirbančiųjų žemės ūkio sektoriuje dalis), užsienio investicijos.

Many countries are reviewing immigration policy, focusing on wage and employment effects for workers whose jobs may be threatened by immigration. Less attention is given to effects on prices of goods and services. The effect on childcare prices is particularly relevant to policies for dealing with the gender pay gap and below-replacement fertility rates, both thought to be affected by the difficulty of combining work and family. New research suggests immigration lowers the cost of household services and high-skilled women respond by working more or having more children.

This study identifies and analyzes the effects of university/college graduates’ personal, household and employment characteristics as well as the attributes of their study, work and home locations on their college-to-work, college-to-residence, and commuting distances. The results illustrate that graduates are drawn to prospering regions with ample job opportunities, supposedly in order to advance their careers. They choose their places of residence so as to balance their commuting distances and the distances to their previous places of study. Residential amenities have a comparatively small effect on graduates’ locational choices, whereas they appear to value accessibility of the place of residence. JEL classifications: R23, R41 Keywords: distance, migration, locational choice, commuting, college-to-work, college-to-residence

Theories about neighbours’ influence on children's education that are based on social capital, cohesion, and disorganisation stress the importance of neighbourhood stability. This is because stability is regarded as necessary for building strong ties and friendships, which in turn affect educational outcomes. However, amongst the vast number of studies on the effect of neighbours on a child's education, none has tested whether neighbourhood stability matters. We fill this gap by estimating the causal effect of residential turnover on student test score gains. Estimation is based on administrative data on four cohorts of secondary school students in England, allowing us to control for pupil-level, neighbourhood-level, and school-by-cohort level unobservables and for changes in neighbourhood composition driven by students’ residential mobility. We show that a high turnover of same-school-grade students reduces value added for teenagers who stay in their neighbourhood, although turnover of other age groups does not matter. These results coupled with auxiliary findings based on survey data suggest that neighbours’ turnover damages education through the disruption of local ties and friendships, highlighting a so-far undiscovered spillover of mobility.

Between 1984 and 1993, New Zealand undertook comprehensive market-oriented economic reforms. In this paper, we use census data to examine how the internal mobility of Māori compares to that of Europeans in New Zealand in the period after these reforms. It is often suggested that Māori are less mobile than other ethnic groups because of attachment to particular geographical locations. If this were the case, Māori may have been disadvantaged in the post-reform period because they were more likely to be living in adversely affected areas and less likely to move to pursue better employment opportunities. In contrast to the anecdotal evidence, we find that Māori are more mobile on average than similar Europeans. However, Māori who live in areas with strong networks of their iwi are slightly less mobile than Europeans. The difference between Māori who live locally to their iwi and those who do not is even more pronounced when we consider responsiveness to local labour market shocks. Non-local Māori are considerably more responsive to changes in economic opportunities than are Europeans, whereas local Māori are almost entirely unresponsive. JEL codes: J61, J15, R23.

The paper is devoted to analytical investigation of the division of geographical space into urban and rural areas with application to Russia. Yegorov (2005, 2006, 2009) has suggested the role of population density on economics. A city has an attractive potential based on scale economies. The optimal city size depends on the balance between its attractive potential and the cost of living that can be approximated by equilibrium land rent and commuting cost. For moderate scale effects optimal population of a city depends negatively on transport costs that are related positively with energy price index.The optimal agricultural density of population can also be constructed. The larger is a land slot per peasant, the higher will be the output from one unit of his labour force applied to this slot. But at the same time, larger farm size results in increase of energy costs, related to land development, collecting the crop and bringing it to the market.In the last 10 years we have observed substantial rise of both food and energy prices at the world stock markets. However, the income of farmers did not grow as fast as food price index. This can shift optimal rural population density to lower level, causing migration to cities (and we observe this tendency globally). Any change in those prices results in suboptimality of existing spatial structures.If changes are slow, the optimal infrastructure can be adjusted by simple migration. If the shocks are high, adaptation may be impossible and shock will persist. This took place in early 1990es in the former USSR, where after transition to world price for oil in domestic markets existing spatial infrastructure became suboptimal and resulted in persistent crisis, leading to deterioration of both industry and agriculture.Russia is the largest country but this is also its problem. Having large resource endowment per capita, it is problematic to build sufficient infrastructure. Russia has too low population density and rural density declines further due to low fertility and migration to cities. Those factors limited the growth of the USSR, but after the economic reforms of 1990s the existing infrastructure became exposed to permanent shock of high transport costs. Due to large distances it is optimal to return to gasoline and thus transport subsidy. This will work also against disintegration of the country.

Gemeinden in demographischen Notlagen stehen vor besonderen Herausforderungen. Einerseits zwingt die Verringerung der Bevölkerungszahlen zu einer Verschlankung von Infrastruktur im technischen wie im sozialen Bereich. Andererseits kann eine weitere Ausdünnung derartiger Angebote – zu denken ist vornehmlich an die Bereiche Bildung, Kultur und Sport, Versorgung, Verkehr oder aber Gesundheit – den demographischen Abwärtstrend weiter verstärken. Steht ein Rückbau dieser Angebote doch im Verdacht, die Attraktivität der Gemeinden als Wohnstandort auszuhöhlen und Abwanderungsprozesse zu beschleunigen bzw. Zuwanderung zu verhindern. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird im Beitrag untersucht, wie der kommunale Versorgungsgrad mit Hausärzten auf die Wanderungsbewegungen in den Gemeinden Sachsen-Anhalts in der Periode von 1996 bis 2008 wirkte. In diesem Zeitraum ist zum einen ein deutlicher Rückgang der Zahl der Hausärzte zu beobachten. Zum anderen verloren viele Gemeinden an Einwohnern, nicht zuletzt aufgrund erheblicher Wanderungsdefizite. Weder die Querschnittsanalyse noch die Panelregressionen können jedoch signifikante Wanderungseffekte der Hausarztausstattung belegen. Gemeinden mit schlechter bzw. verschlechterter hausärztlicher Versorgungslage scheinen in der Nettobetrachtung nicht ungünstiger abzuschneiden als die übrigen Gemeinden.

In den vergangenen Jahren ist die Zahl der Arbeitsplätze in Berlin kräftig gestiegen, gleichzeitig nahm aber auch die Nachfrage nach Arbeitsplätzen zu - zum einen, weil mehr Menschen erwerbstätig sein wollen, und zum anderen, weil Berlin Arbeitskräfte aus anderen Regionen anzieht. Die Arbeitslosigkeit sank daher in Berlin schwächer als in Deutschland insgesamt, in den vergangenen beiden Jahren ging sie gar nicht mehr zurück. Beim Ausmaß der Unterbeschäftigung rangiert Berlin in der Spitzengruppe der deutschen Regionen. Nur besonders strukturschwache Gebiete in den neuen Bundesländern und einige altindustrielle westdeutsche Regionen weisen eine höhere Arbeitslosigkeit auf. Ein weit überdurchschnittlicher Teil der Berliner Arbeitslosen ist auf Hartz IV angewiesen, was in der Regel ein Indiz für längere Arbeitslosigkeit oder mangelnde Berufserfahrung ist. Etwa die Hälfte der Arbeitslosen hat keine Berufsausbildung, und von denjenigen, die eine Ausbildung vorweisen können, wollen viele Berufe ausüben, in denen die Chancen auf einen Job wegen der hohen Unterbeschäftigung schlecht sind. Das gilt zum Teil auch für Personen in akademischen, insbesondere sozialwissenschaftlichen Berufen und für Künstler. Für diese Gruppen ist Berlin offenbar ein Magnet, auch wenn die Beschäftigungsmöglichkeiten (noch) unzureichend sind. In manchen dieser Berufe wohnt mittlerweile ein großer Teil der Arbeitslosen in Berlin. Auffallend ist in Berlin zudem die vergleichsweise hohe Jugendarbeitslosigkeit. Obwohl die Zahl der Jugendlichen demografisch bedingt auch in Berlin zurückgeht und die Teilnahme an schulischer oder universitärer Ausbildung wächst, fehlt es weiterhin an Lehrstellen. Insgesamt zeigt sich, dass Berlin wirtschaftlich einen robusten Wachstumspfad eingeschlagen hat. Die Stadt ist nicht nur für Touristen attraktiv, sondern sie zieht auch viele Menschen an, die in Berlin leben und arbeiten wollen. Große Probleme bereitet dagegen weiter die Integration der Arbeitslosen in den Erwerbsprozess.

This paper aims to shed light in the dynamics of Spanish regional unemployment rates and determine the driving forces of their disparities. The Spanish economy has one of the highest unemployment rates in the EU and is characterised by severe regional disparities. We apply the chain reaction theory of unemployment according to which the evolution of unemployment is driven by the interplay of lagged adjustment processes and the spillover effects within the labour market system. Our model includes nationwide as well as region-specific variables, and takes into account the limited labour and firm mobility in Spain. We show that the degree of labour market flexibility differs between high and low unemployment regions, and find that investment has a major influence on the unemployment trajectory. In addition, we find that in bad times high unemployment regions are hit more severely than low unemployment regions, while in good times high unemployment regions do not benefit as much as low unemployment regions.

Seit das Bundesverfassungsgericht 2005 das Verbot von Studiengebühren aufgehoben hat, haben sieben Bundesländer Studiengebühren von bis zu 500 Euro pro Semester eingeführt. Eine Studie des DIW Berlin zeigt, dass dies zu Ausweichreaktionen der Studienbewerber geführt hat, die zahlenmäßig nur gering ausfallen: Die Wahrscheinlichkeit, ein Studium im Heimatbundesland beginnen zu wollen, sinkt für Studienanfänger aus Gebührenländern um rund zwei Prozentpunkte. Dabei weichen vor allem Abiturienten mit schlechten Zeugnissen den Gebührenländern aus. Studienanfänger mit sehr guten Abiturnoten lassen sich dagegen von den Gebühren kaum abschrecken.

Einer Langfristprojektion des DIW Berlin zufolge wird der Personenverkehr in Berlin bis 2050 nur wenig zunehmen. Die Zahl der Wege steigt gegenüber 2005 um 2 %, die der zurückgelegten Personenkilometer um 6 %. Während der motorisierte Individualverkehr in der genannten Periode zunimmt, ist für den öffentlichen Personennahverkehr (ÖPNV) Berlins bis 2020 ein Rückgang der Fahrgastzahlen um 8 % zu erwarten. Bis 2050 zeigt sich in dem vom DIW Berlin für wahrscheinlich gehaltenen Szenario zur demografischen Entwicklung dann aber keine weitere Abnahme des ÖPNV. Auch wenn die Zahl der älteren Rentner erheblich steigt, werden die Erwerbstätigen mit 43 % auch im Jahr 2050 den höchsten Anteil an den ÖPNV-Fahrten haben; Berufstätige bleiben die wichtigste Kundengruppe. Es wäre falsch, aus dem demografischen Wandel abzuleiten, das ÖPNV-Angebot künftig vor allem senioren gerecht zu gestalten. Die Notwendigkeit eines generellen weiteren ÖPNV-Ausbaus auf der Schiene ergibt sich aus der Nachfrageentwicklung nicht. Die Straßen-Infrastruktur dürfte in ihrem Umfang für die zukünftige Nachfrage ebenfalls ausreichen. Hier kommt es darauf an, die Instandhaltung und Qualitätssicherung des bestehenden Netzes zu gewährleisten.

In this paper we study how the determinants of regional commuting in Italy have evolved in the past fifteen years. Using labour force data from 1992 to 2008 we estimate a model where the probability of commuting is regressed on a wide set of individual, job, firm and regional characteristics. Specifically, we focus on understanding how the increased flexibility of the labour market in the late nineties/early twenties have affected the individual decision to commute across regions. Consistent with the previous literature, we identify specific types of individual working in firms with well-defined features who are more keen to commute. However, even though temporary employ-ees tend to commute more than permanent employees, the increased utilization of temporary contracts did not have a strong impact on the commuting decisions of Italian workers.

Indirect psychological effects induced by crime are likely to contribute significantly to the total costs of crime beyond the financial costs of direct victimization. Using detailed crime statistics for the whole of Germany and linking them to individual-level mental health information from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we analyze whether local crime rates affect the mental health of residents. We estimate that a one standard deviation increase in local violent crime rates significantly decreases individual mental well-being among residents by, on average, one percent. Smaller effects are found for property and total crime rates. Results are insensitive to migration and not isolated to urban areas, but are rather driven by less densely populated regions. In contrast to previous literature on vulnerability to crime, we find that men, more educated and singles react more to variation in violent crime rates in their neighborhoods. One potential explanation could be that those who are more fearful of crime have developed better coping strategies and, hence, react less to changes in crime. Indirekte psychologische Effekte stellen möglicherweise einen erheblichen Teil der durch Kriminalität verursachten Gesamtkosten dar. Um zu analysieren, ob regionale Kriminalitätsraten die mentale Gesundheit beeinflussen, nutzen wir detaillierte Kriminalitätsinformationen für Deutschland und verknüpfen diese mit Informationen zu individueller mentaler Gesundheit aus dem Sozio-ökonomischen Panel. Unsere Schätzergebnisse implizieren, dass der Anstieg um eine Standardabweichung in der Gewaltverbrechensrate das mentale Wohlbefinden der lokalen Bevölkerung signifikant um durchschnittlich ein Prozent reduziert. Für Eigentumsdelikte und die Gesamtkriminalitätsrate beobachten wir geringere Effekte. Die Ergebnisse werden weder durch Wohnortwechsler beeinflusst noch sind sie auf urbane Regionen begrenzt, sondern sind vielmehr durch weniger dicht besiedelte Regionen getrieben. Im Gegensatz zur Literatur zur Angst vor Kriminalität beobachten wir, dass Männer, höher Gebildete und Alleinstehende sensibler auf Veränderungen in der regionalen Gewaltverbrechensrate reagieren. Eine Erklärung hierfür könnte sein, dass diejenigen, die mehr Angst vor Kriminalität haben, entsprechende Coping-Strategien entwickelt haben und daher auch weniger auf Veränderungen in der Kriminalitätsrate reagieren.

Der demographische Wandel wird viele Bundesländer in Zukunft vor große wirtschaftspolitische Herausforderungen stellen, da die Abnahme der Erwerbsbevölkerung die wirtschaftliche Dynamik bremst. Dem Versuch, den Fachkräftebedarf durch verstärkte Ausbildung zu decken, sind wegen der hohen Mobilität junger Arbeitskräfte jedoch Grenzen gesetzt, denn Hochschulabsolventen sind gerade für ihre ersten Beschäftigungsverhältnisse über Bundeslandgrenzen hinweg sehr mobil. Dies schwächt für einige Bundesländer die demographisch bedingten Auswirkungen ab, während es sie für andere verstärkt. Im Rahmen dieses Beitrags soll das Wanderungsverhalten von Hochschulabsolventen analysiert werden. Ein besonderes Augenmerk liegt dabei auf den Wanderungsdefiziten bzw. -überschüssen während der ersten fünf Jahre nach Studienabschluss. Dies ermöglicht wirtschaftspolitische Schlussfolgerungen im Hinblick auf die Bereitstellung und Finanzierung von Hochschulbildung.

This paper explores how inflows of low-skilled immigrants impact the tradeoffs women face when making joint fertility and labor supply decisions. I find increases in fertility and decreases in labor force participation rates among high-skilled US-born women in cities that have experienced larger immigrant inflows. Most interestingly, these changes have been accompanied by decreases in the strength of the negative correlation between childbearing and labor force participation, an often-used measure of the difficulty with which women combine motherhood and labor market work. Using a structured statistical model, I show that the immigrant-induced attenuation of this negative correlation can explain about 24% of the immigrant-induced increases in the joint likelihood of childbearing and labor force participation in the US between the years 1980 and 2000.JEL codesD10, F22, J13, J22, R23

This paper seeks to investigate the occupational segregation of white women in the U.S. at the local labor market level, exploring whether the segregation of this group is a homogeneous phenomenon across the country or there are important disparities in the opportunities that these women meet with across American urban areas. As opposed to other studies that are based on pair-wise comparisons between groups (e.g., white women versus white men, white women versus black women, and so on) and calculate an index?mainly the index of dissimilarity?for each of these comparisons, this paper use segregation measures that permit one to offer a single value for white women (Alonso-Villar and Del Río, 2010). The results based on 273 metropolitan areas show substantial variation across areas. The proportion of white women working in a metropolitan area who would have to shift occupations to achieve zero segregation without changing the occupational structure of the area ranges between 20% and roughly 40%. An important contribution of this paper is that, apart from quantifying the extent of segregation, it also assesses the consequences of that segregation taking into account the ?quality? of occupations that the group tends to fill or not to fill. The analysis reveals that although segregation brings white women as a whole a per capita estimated gain of 1% of the average wage of the country, in some MAs these women have gains of around 21% of the average wage in the area while in others they instead have losses of 11%. Therefore, an analysis of segregation of white women at the national level seems to mask the real situation of this group. Apart from the disadvantages that white women face in terms of receiving lower wages than their male counterparts working in the same occupation and MA, the occupational distribution of these women remains an issue to deal with in many local labor markets. This paper goes one step further by attempting to explain the disparities that exist across areas. By undertaken both counterfactual and regression analyses, it investigates whether the spatial disparities that exist in the gains/losses of white women associated to their segregation arise from territorial differences in a) the educational level of white women, b) the gender-race composition of the labor force, c) the relative pay of occupations, d) the industrial structure, and e) the state in which the area is located. The analysis shows that differences among states are significant even after controlling for demographic, educational, industrial, and earning variables.

Most ‘wage curve’ studies treat local labour markets as independent ‘islands’ in the national economy. However, when a local labour market is in close proximity of other labour markets, a local shock that increases unemployment may not lead to lower pay rates if employers fear outward migration of their workers. Hence, the unemployment elasticity of pay will be greater, the more isolated the local labour market is. Wages are also expected to be higher in regions that interact strongly with other regions. These hypotheses are confirmed by means of an estimation of wage curves with data for 327 regions of western Germany over the period 1990-97. Key words: Unemployment, wage formation, spatial analysis, local monopsony, Germany JEL classification: J21, J30, R23

In this paper we present and confront the main comparative static results - effects of labor supply, demand and institutional wage movements - of the (a) basic two-sector model in six different scenarios: free market; partial (one-sector) coverage with perfect intersector mobility; partial (one-sector) coverage with imperfect mobility (Harris-Todaro); multiple (two-sector) coverage with imperfect mobility (Bhagwati-Hamada); partial (one-sector) coverage with affiliation restrictions in the covered sector; partial (one-sector) coverage with limited employment generation ability in the traditional uncovered sector.

Even if it has not a legal status yet, the Bucharest Metropolitan Area (BMA) project is in an advanced preparation phase, already producing effects in the real economy. Conventionally, BMA imbeds the entire Ilfov county (which surrounds it and form together the Bucharest-Ilfov region (NUTS 2)) as well as localities from other four counties of the South - Muntenia region (also NUTS 2). As Bucharest-Ilfov region appears as an enclave within South-Muntenia region, in a broader view it is considered that BMA influences all seven surrounding counties belonging to the South-Muntenia region. This region as a whole (apart from the localities of the four counties that are to be incorporated in the metropolitan area) plus Bucharest MA are viewed as the Bucharest metropolitan region, in other words the South-Muntenia region is the BMA external hinterland. In technical terms, the metropolitan area is a zone of direct city impact in which the relationships are strong and permanent (functional urban area, internal hinterland zone) whereas the metropolitan region is a zone in which the relationships are weaker, but the area is under the core city influence (macroregion, external hinterland zone). One of the main debates around BMA and metropolitan region refers to the effects of the BMA on its external hinterland, South-Muntenia region, by far less developed: are they / will they be spread or rather backwash effects? Our paper addresses this question focusing on a series of issues such as: examples of links between BMA and surrounding region, examples of positive and negative influences of the metropolis on its surrounding region, changes in regional settlement system and its drivers, changes in regional production system and main drivers, labour commuting patterns and drivers, policies with significant impact on metropolis ? region relationship, how external interventions address the needs of the metropolitan area and its external hinterland, to what extent the metropolitan area can contribute to the external hinterland regeneration, etc. The paper is the result of the research undertaken within the GRINCOH FP7 project.

In fiscally centralised countries with a unique country-wide income tax schedule, it is straightforward to quantify the degree of progressivity. In fiscally decentralised countries with varying local tax schedules, however, this is not the case. In these countries, the effective tax progressivity depends on the distribution of taxpayers across local jurisdiction as well as on local income distributions. The latter might differ systematically because high income households can partly or fully avoid high tax rates by sorting into low tax locations. This paper develops an empirical approach in order to quantify the effective tax progressivity in a fiscally highly decentralised country - Switzerland - taking the relative size of jurisdictions and the actually observed income sorting into account. Exploiting data on the universe of Swiss taxpayers, we find that rich households face significantly lower tax rates and lower progressivity than in the benchmark case that does not take the income sorting into account. The results are stronger for singles than for families indicating that singles are more sensitive to tax differentials than families. Furthermore, we find suggestive evidence that due to this income sorting the Swiss income tax system is not only less progressive but even regressive for single households with very high incomes.

In 2001, the AZF plant exploded in Toulouse (France). The accident was unexpected, it strongly damaged local housing and benefited from a wide media coverage. It provides a rare opportunity to analyze the consequences of a shift in risk perception on housing markets and neighborhoods subject to industrial risk. Using a difference-in-difference matching strategy, this paper shows that although transaction prices do not change as a result of this shift, local housing markets are indeed affected. In particular, the vacancy rate increases, and the standard of living in the at-risk areas tends to deteriorate.

Types of Demographic and Economic Development of Russian Cities in Post-Soviet Period Albrecht Kauffmann, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), Germany Leonid Limonov, Higher School of Economics-St.Petersburg, International Centre for Social and Economic Research «Leontief Centre», Russia Key-words: Urban Systems, Typology, Cluster Analysis, City Size, Balance of Migration, Labor Market, Economic Activity, Poverty Trap, Principle Components. JEL codes: R12, R15, R23 For long time, the applicability of economic theories of cities, urbanisation and urban development as well to Russian cities was hampered by the lack of data beyond population figures. Since 1990, some contributions of Richard Rowland with regard to urban development in Russia referred to certain classes of cities (metropolitan cities, rapidly growing cities, declining cities or secret cities). However, with the exception of secret cities (ZATO), these classifications are derived from purely size characteristics, and are rather descriptive. Also Mykhnenko and Turok (2008) analyse only population figures of 150 East European cities, among them 56 Russian cities. Kauffmann (2010) analyses growth rates of population of about 3000 Russian cities and urban settlements between 1993 and 2004 with regard to the predictions of a certain class of New Economic Geography models. But, since 2004, data for cities with more than 100000 inhabitants (and for some smaller cities with regional capital function, as well) are published by ROSSTAT annually in "Regiony Rossii vol. 3". Applying data from this source, a cluster analysis has been undertaken, where indicators with regard to demography, labour market and geography of 156 cities are included into the variable set. The outcome are 15 clusters that may be well interpreted by principal components. The aim of this cluster analysis is to provide impulses for drawing on theories which may explain Russian urban development. Among principal components 2 most important are natural resources and labor endowment (Eigen Values are 6.2 and 3.2 respectfully). Smaller input in urban dynamics is provided by population change characteristics (Eigen Value is 1.8), the place of the city in urban system hierarchy (1.1) and by the poverty trap situation (0.9). Agglomeration economy has only a weak influence on Russian cities dynamics (Eigen Value is 0.8), it can be identified in cities with more than 1 mln population, in cities of Moscow Metropolitan Region and in principal cities of the Centre and the South of European Russia.

Policy makers at all levels of government believe that one of the key drivers of local economic growth is new businesses. Therefore, governments design policy with the intention of attracting businesses with the hopes that this will create future growth in struggling areas. Over the past few decades, the federal government has adjusted its approach to aid low-income communities to be based on market-based policies that encourage private investment in low-income communities. The underlying logic of these programs is that the best way to help local areas develop is to set up incentives for businesses at a local level to attract these drivers of growth to disadvantaged communities. By bringing new businesses and employment opportunities to a struggling area, there will be increased employment opportunities and the market will operate to reach an efficient outcome. In this paper, we use the New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) adopted in 2000 by the U.S. government to determine the effect of market-based, government-sponsored tax credits on the location decisions of new businesses. One issue when looking at the impact of business location decisions on growth is there is an inherent endogeneity issue, as entrepreneurs are likely to open their new establishment in growing areas. To address this endogeneity concern, we draw upon an eligibility cutoff in the NMTC to determine the impact of the tax credit on where businesses locate. By comparing census tracts with income levels that make the tract just eligible for the tax credit versus those that are just not eligible for the credit, we are able to obtain causal estimates. Using business location data from the Dun and Bradstreet MarketPlace Files, we find that in Metropolitan Statistical Areas in particular, the tax credit successfully incentivized businesses to locate in lower income census tracts. In particular, we found that these tax credits, aimed at increasing investment, had particularly strong effects on manufacturing. Our results suggest that these market-based tax incentives are having the intended effect of attracting new businesses to struggling areas. Our research fits into a growing literature on the impact of place-based tax programs on the development of local areas

Age is an important factor in entrepreneurship. The paths into entrepreneurship at a later age may be varied. Self-employment in later life may be either a form of partial retirement or a career option. Older individuals may also be pushed into self-employment. The focus of this paper is on the career choices of older individuals and their background motivations in Finland. The purpose is to analyse the factors and motives in terms of the push and pull dichotomy that lead individuals to enter self-employment at older ages in different types of labour markets in Finland, viz., rural and urban areas. Although some studies have focused on transitions to self-employment among older workers, questions about the motives and particularly about the background and circumstances of these people, including the regional environment, still need clarification. A large longitudinal data set is utilised to examine the transitions of individuals aged 55-74 to self-employment. The results suggest that due to a lower level of demand and lower educational capital, self-employment is less tempting in rural than in urban areas. As a result, transitions to self-employment at older ages are less frequent in rural areas than in urban areas, although rural areas have strong traditions of entrepreneurship. Seniors with prior experience are more likely to start a business in urban areas: habitual entrepreneurship is more frequent in urban areas, at least in later life. Older workers without prior experience in self-employment, however, start businesses in rural areas as likely as in urban areas. The results also show that most enter self-employment from paid employment, though a small number do enter from non-employment. The results suggest that a career option is often linked with transitions from wage work, whereas those transitioning from non-employment seek a bridge to full retirement. No sharp division between these two options can be made, however. The results suggest that those who are recognised to possess pull motives are characterised to be more likely male and/or highly educated, whereas those who are recognised to possess push motives are more likely female, unmarried and/or less educated with an orientation of business education. An interesting finding is that both necessity- and opportunity-driven self-employed have prior self-employment experience. Independent of whether entrepreneurship is necessity- or opportunity-driven, it is most likely habitual.

This paper uses the British Household Panel Survey (1991-2008) and the UK Census (waves 1991, 2001 and 2011) to examine the association between gentrification and displacement in English cities. Gentrification is the phenomena of a large and relatively sudden in-migration of wealthy or middle class residents into a previously poor or working class neighbourhood. I measure this using the change in share of neighbourhood population that holds a degree certificate conditional on the initial share. The effect is found to depend crucially on household income and homeownership status as well as how gentrified the initial share. In a ward with an initial degree share of 5%, a renter household with an income of 0.5 times travel-to-work-area (TTWA) median is found to be 1.5 percentage points more likely to exit for each percentage point increase in degree share, after controlling for other factors. However, if the household income is 1.5 times the TTWA average then this effect becomes statistically insignificant. For homeowners, on the other hand, the effect remains stable at around 1pp across all income levels. This result may be explained by institutional context since, in the UK, property tax is only applied at the point of sale. This means that a low-income homeowner facing increasing property value is not forced to sell due to escalating tax assessments, as may be the case in the US. So whilst the rising housing costs associated with gentrification do induce homeowners to sell, there is no income dimension to this effect as there is with rising rental costs. These results provide a significant contribution to the literature on displacement, which has previously found little evidence for the effect.

In East Germany a profound demographic change has been taking place that manifests itself in the shrinkage and the aging of the population. One major cause is the drop in the East German fertility rates by about half directly after the reunification of Germany in 1990. In no other countries of the former Eastern Bloc, this process was so drastic and abrupt as in East Germany. Around the year 2007, the small after-reunification cohorts started to enter the East German labor market that had been characterized for many years by high unemployment and declining employment. Beginning in 2005, however, the situation on the labor market reversed. At the same time, substantial labor market reforms were started in Germany that have additionally spurred employment. Given these developments, the question arises if and to what extent the labor market entry of the young and smaller cohorts has affected the declining unemployment rate in East Germany. This paper tackles the question of the ties between demography and unemployment in East Germany and to this end draws on the concepts of the cohort crowding literature. Using data from official population and labor-market statistics for the period from 1993 to 2012, we calculate both a direct and an indirect effect of aging on unemployment. For the direct effect we decompose the East German unemployment rate in three components. We find that not changes in the age structure of the population but rather labor-market effects had the greatest impact on the decrease in unemployment. For the econometric analysis of the indirect effect, we use information on the small-scale regional level and resort to spatial panel methods. The results yield a strong relation between the youth as well as the old-age dependency ratio and the unemployment ratio. A decline in the youth dependency ratio of one per cent comes along with a decline of the unemployment ratio of 0.489 per cent. Likewise, an increase of the old-age dependency ratio of one per cent is accompanied by a fall of the unemployment ratio of 0.470 per cent. Overall, our results provide evidence that the declining unemployment rate in East Germany is indeed affected by aging. Thus, a reversed cohort crowding effect has been taking place in the East German labor market.

This paper studies the interaction between commuting, job mobility, and housing mobility. Many conventional models assume that the employment location has priority over the residential location and that the latter is adapted to the former. This implies that commutes which start with a job change will often be short lived because of a change in residential location that soon follows. It is also often supposed that the change in residential location is made with the intention to avoid long commutes. In this paper we test the empirical validity of these hypotheses. Our data are a sample of Dutch workers who report changes on the housing and labor market between 1990 and 1998. It appears from these data that both job mobility and housing mobility are often followed by repeat mobility on the same market, but also on the other market. Job mobility indeed triggers residential mobility, but the effect of residential mobility on job changes is of comparable magnitude. Moreover, both types of mobility lead to substantial repeat mobility. We specify duration models that focus on the time during which employment – housing arrangements (hence, commutes) remain unchanged. Estimation results for these models confirm that commutes which start with housing mobility and those which start with job mobility have similar characteristics with respect to induced future mobility. We are unable to find evidence supporting the hypothesis that long commutes resulting from a job change induce additional residential mobility. Another result of the analysis is that workers belonging to dual-earner households are more mobile on both markets than other workers.

This paper theoretically and empirically advances the hypothesis that differences in environmental preferences can be traced to cultural differences. In particular, we argue that environmental attitudes such as the willingness to pay for the environment are not solely the effect of local environmental conditions on individual attitudes. On the contrary, we establish that they can also be accounted for by cultural differences accross countries. To establish our hypothesis we exploit the natural experiment of international migration flows and establish that the environmental culture of migrants, as has been formed in their country of origin and transmitted accross generations, is still prevalent in the host country. Interestingly these culture differences with respect to environmental awareness are prevalent despite the fact that all migrants in a host country are exposed to the same local environment. In the presence of multiple environmental problems that require collective action, comprehending the driving forces behind the formation of an environmental culture, a potential driver of environmental policies, is critical.

We use a new data set on Italy and a novel identification strategy to analyse the relationship between migrants’ employment status and the percentage of non-Italians living nearby. Our data contain information at the very local level and are representative of both legal and illegal migrants. Identification exploits the physical characteristics of local buildings as a source of exogenous variation in the incidence of migrants. We find that migrants residing in more immigrant-dense areas are less likely to be employed. This penalty is higher if the migrants leaving nearby are illegal and it is not mitigated if they are from own ethnic group or more proficient in Italian. In the 10 years predating the Great Recession Europe received twice as many immigrants (relative to the resident population) than the US and 4–5 times as many as Japan (OECD, 2009). The main motivation of these flows was finding a job. Family reunification and asylum seeking were fairly marginal. The main destination of migrants was Southern Europe, where the stock of foreign born increased by some 5 million in Spain and 3 million in Italy within a decade, doubling the migrant population in several urban areas over a few years. Most of these migrants came in illegally hoping for a subsequent regularisation and there was no major social housing programme activated in the destination countries responding to these mass migration flows, just while house prices were booming. Newcomers did not locate uniformly across the board: they often found residence where other persons of the same nationality or ethnic group were already living, increasing the residential concentration of migrants in urban areas. How did these residential location patterns affect the economic integration of migrants, notably their probability of finding a job? Is there scope for policies reducing residential concentration of migrants in specific urban areas? While in the US research related to the effects of residential concentration of migrants on their economic and social integration is long standing (Borjas, 1995; Cutler and Glaeser, 1997; Ross, 1998; Cutler et al., 1999; Card and Rothstein, 2007), in Europe, notably in Southern Europe, there is a very thin scientific literature on this issue, despite the highly controversial public debate. This paucity of studies for Europe is mainly due to a lack of detailed data on ethnic minorities and migrants, especially at the city level (Bisin et al., 2011). Moreover data collection is particularly problematic

This paper studies the effect of apprenticeship training on technology adoption and labor market polarization. A stylized model with two key features is developed: (1) apprentices are more productive due to industry-specific training, but (2) from the firm׳s perspective, when training apprentices, technological innovation is costly since training becomes obsolete. Thus, apprentices correlate with slower adoption of skill-replacing technologies, but also less employment polarization. We test this hypothesis on German regions given local variation in apprenticeship systems until 1976. The results show little computer adoption and no employment polarization related to apprentices, but similar displacement of non-apprentices by computers as in the US.

This article reconsiders the empirical evidence on regional human capital externalities using longitudal survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). It complements the empirical literature on the role of human capital for explaining regional wage differences. Based on the framework by Moretti (2004a), the impact of different proxies of regional human capital intensity on regional wages is estimated while controlling for individual productivity determinants and regional characteristics. The results are compared with the constant-composition approach by Ciccone and Peri (2006) which accounts for imperfect substitution between unskilled and skilled labor. The Mincerian panel results with level data indicate that one additional year of education has an external wage effect of 2%. However, once a difference specification is estimated, external effects are no longer present. The theoretical predictions by Ciccone and Peri (2006) that the Mincerian approach leads to an upward biased estimate cannot be verified.

In this paper, we examine the effect of suburbanization on obesity rates. Our study is an improvement over the existing literature because we will use county level data for our analysis, enabling us to look at the effect of moving from the central city to the suburbs. Previous research has only had health data at the MSA level, and therefore could not look at the effect of highways on obesity rates within an MSA, particularly the suburbs versus the central city. To estimate the relationship between obesity and highways, we will use county-level data on obesity rates from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). We merge the obesity information with data on the proposed highway program of 1950 used previously by Baum-Snow (2007). Our results suggest that additional miles of a highway system increase obesity rates in urban areas.

We set out a small, open economy model of a city, one with local housing, government production and a non-traded good. We observe that a positive shift in labor productivity in the export sector generally results in a larger, higher-wage and more densely settled city. Production of the local public good increases for the special case of the public good 'counting' small in the utility function of the representative resident. Similar results obtain for the case of a city experiencing an exogenous improvement in a local climate amenity.

A common phenomenon of development is the big difference in its levels, especially between metropolitan areas and other areas, called peripheries. There are also big differences in opportunities for development, including the location of new investment. Peripheral areas are characterized by features such as: high unemployment, relatively impoverished populations, and low territorial accessibility. A lack of development factors is the cause of low productivity. These realities become barriers to development. To overcome these barriers external policy interventions are needed as a part of the regional policy. This policy should be tailored to the areas' specific needs. Peripheral areas are also very different. The typology has been applied by the author to recognize this diversity. It is a preparation for a wider research project on the development of policies supporting peripheral areas. European Union's NUTS 3 level regions are the subject of research, which meet the following criteria at the same time: gross domestic product (GDP) per capita below 75% of the EU average and the lack of metropolitan areas and large cities. The first stage of the research is to establish a list of attributes and variables. There are following variables: ­ - gross domestic product per capita, ­ - employment structure by sector (agriculture and fishing, industry, market services and non-market services), ­ - number of tourist bed-places per a thousand of inhabitants (for measuring the level of tourism development), ­ - unemployment rate, ­ - population of the biggest settlement node. The second stage of research is performing a statistical analysis, including multivariate calculations to check the correlations between the data, and to select the final set of indicators which will be used for the typology. The third stage of research is preparing a typology of sub-regions, using the k-means algorithm. The last part of the article is the interpretation of the results, the characteristics of each type and formulation of preliminary proposals for regional policy, and research concerning them.

Ever since Sjaastad (1962), researchers have struggled to quantify the psychic cost of migration. We monetize psychic cost as the wage premium for moving to a culturally different location. We combine administrative social security panel data with a proxy for cultural difference based on historical dialect dissimilarity between German counties. Conditional on geographic distance and pre-migration wage profiles, we find that migrants demand a (indexed with respect to local rents) wage premium of about 1 (1.5) percent for overcoming one standard deviation in cultural dissimilarity. The effect is driven by males, more pronounced for geographically short moves, and persistent over time.

I show that the nontradable sector of a regional economy benefits from attracting jobs in the tradable sector. I find that on average one new job in a tradable industry in a city will attract 1.02 extra jobs in the nontradable sector of that same city. This local multiplier effect increases with the unemployment rate, as the labour market becomes more elastic. The extra jobs created in the local nontradable labour market are mainly fulfilled by workers from other regions. I do not find a significant multiplier in the nontradable sector for current inhabitants. These findings are important for regional economic policy, as they suggest that cities with a high unemployment rate will be most successful at increasing local employment levels by attracting tradable industries, but their current residents are not likely to benefit from the additional multiplier. Currently the U.S. emphasize 'labour supply policies' to reduce poverty. These policies consist of a direct interaction with the unemployed to increase the quantity or quality of their labour supply. Common examples are job training or welfare reform policies that make it harder to get benefits. There is little emphasis on 'labour demand policies'. Labour demand policies stimulate employers to provide more jobs or increase the quality of their jobs (Bartik, 2001). Bartik argues that a successful reduction of poverty will only be achieved by a combination of both policies. A key aspect of understanding labour supply policies is the interplay between jobs in the tradable and jobs in the nontradable sector. Attracting jobs in the tradable sector can be especially effective in low growth regions with high unemployment because this will induce the most extra jobs in the nontradable sector. Insights in the effects of the tradable sector on the regional economy is therefore crucial for the development of regional policy. In short the increased employment in the tradable sector increases the total income in a region and therefore allows for more consumption by the local inhabitants. Depending on the preferences of the inhabitants this will increase demand for non-tradable goods and depending on the technology required to produce these goods, this will increase employment and wages in the non-tradable sector. Therefore the size of the local multiplier will depend on many factors, such as the type of new jobs in the tradable sector, the unemployment rate in a region and whether it is urban or rural.

The aim of the present research is to participate to the recently resurged debate on cluster life cycle theory among scholars of New Evolutionary Geography and Industrial Economics, starting from the seminal contributions of Menzel and Fornhal (2010). Authors pointed out how the very cluster dynamics is both the driver for the movement of a cluster through a life cycle and the reason why this movement differs from the industry life cycle. Cluster life cycle is recently attracting increasing attention and notwithstanding some authors as Martin and Sunley (2011) showed some criticism, proposing alternative approaches, they agreed the cluster evolution literature is still in search of an appropriate analytical frame work and is necessary to follow an evolutionary approach instead of a deterministic perspective, considering also the analysis of local contexts. Boschma and Fornahl (2011) reaffirming this position, indicate a ?roadmap for future research' able to integrate different approaches and promote the production of a coherent mass of longitudinal empirical study necessary to verify theoretical hypothesis, at the moment not sufficiently adequate. The work deals with the evolution of textile-clothing Marshallian Industrial District (MID) in Prato, focusing on last twenty years, characterised by the settlement of a large numbers of Chinese firms. The Prato MID is in a transformation/decline phase due for many scholars to the entrance of Chinese immigrants as well as the recent economic crisis and the effects of globalization (Johnson et al., 2009). We contribute to this debate following an evolutionary approach according to the Organisational Ecology and density dependence (Hannan and Freeman, 1989; Hannan and Carroll, 1992). The analysis is carried out on Italian and Chinese firms in Prato MID. Data are collected elaborating the Registry of Economic Activity held by the Province of Prato (1990-2011) and integrated with a previous database constructed from REA from Chambers of Commerce of Prato and Florence (1945-1998) (Lazzeretti and Storai, 2003; Lazzeretti and Terchi, 2002). We carried out demographic analysis on the natality and mortality of firms of Prato MID and we tested ecological models in order to establish relationships between legitimation and competition ecological processes and different life cycle phases. Results allow us to reconstruct the internal dynamics of Prato MID from its birth till today and identify in which stage of the life cycle it is currently, providing a theoretical and empirical contribution to the study of cluster evolution, through the Organisational Ecology.

We combine community-level outcomes of 27 votes about immigration issues in Switzerland with census data to estimate the effect of immigration on natives' attitudes towards immigration. We apply an instrumental variable approach to take potentially endogenous locational choices into account, and we categorize immigrants into two groups according to the cultural values and beliefs of their source country to understand how the cultural distance between natives and immigrants affects this relationship. We find that the share of culturally different immigrants is a significant and sizable determinant of anti-immigration votes, while the presence of culturally similar immigrants does not affect natives' voting behavior at all in most specifications. The cultural distance between immigrant and native residents thus appears crucial in explaining the causal effect of immigration on natives' attitudes towards immigration, and we argue that the differential impact is mainly driven by natives' concerns about compositional amenities. We finally show that the elasticity of the share of right-wing votes in favor of the Swiss People's Party is much more elastic with respect to the share of culturally different immigrants than natives' attitudes themselves, suggesting that the party has disproportionally gained from changes in attitudes caused by immigrant inflows.

This paper is among the first to link internal migration and subjective well-being in developed countries. Economic theory predicts that individuals migrate towards urban agglomerations, if the potential gain in income is sufficient to cover costs. However, this narrow view cannot explain why migration exists also to the rural periphery. In our analysis, we investigate non-monetary benefits beyond economics from internal migration. Using highly disaggregated spatial information on people s migration decisions and their subjective well-being from 2006 to 2010 for Germany, we control for selection bias by applying an individual fixed effect model with additional controls on the labor market region level. We find positive benefits from migration, which are positive and diminishing with distance. Urban-to-rural migration provides higher benefits than rural-to-urban migration in general. Older generations derive large negative benefits from rural-to-urban migration, but positive benefits from urban-to-rural migration. The latter suggests that economic theory underestimates benefits from migration to the periphery when ignoring non-monetary compensating differentials.

The author assumes that globalization and its regional and local impacts have an important role in nowadays' economics. Paradoxically, challenges arising from the unification of the world have made the necessity for regional and local answers stronger. The transformation of the labor market calls for the revaluation of the notion of labor; it puts the issue of employment in another perspective. The solution for globally existing lack of employment is more and more frequently sought focusing on sustainability and social inclusion at regional and local levels. This study consists of three main themes: (1) An overview is given about the main findings of the economic theories associated with employment and labor / paid work; reinterpretation of the concept of labor is also provided, divided into pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial periods, which the author aligns with the periods of the economic thought. The author interprets globalization as a factor influencing the transition between industrial and post-industrial periods; and she elaborately introduces its economic-social and labor market impacts. Among the potential alternatives of employment of the future, this thesis investigates the atypical forms of employment, public employment and social (solidarity) economy. (2) Central-Eastern European countries and regions are analyzed, as the territorial unit of the research, from labor market and employment aspects. Afterwards, the author evaluates the employment situation in this region. (3) Afterwards, she contributes suggestions to the criteria of creating a more efficient regional employment policy. The aim of this research was analysed the regional labor market situation by the Central-Eastern European countries and regions, in particular by the North Hungarian region and was gave some proposals for a possible, efficient regional employment policy. „This research was realized in the frames of TÁMOP 4.2.4. A/2-11-1-2012-0001. National Excellence Program - Elaborating and operating an inland student and researcher personal support system convergence program. The project was subsidized by the European Union and co-financed by the European Social Fund."

This paper describes the Longitudinal Survey on Rural Urban Migration in China (RUMiC), a unique data source in terms of spatial coverage and panel dimension for research on labor markets in China. The survey is a collaboration project between the Australian National University, Beijing Normal University and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), which makes data publicly available to the scientific community by producing Scientific Use Files. The paper illustrates the structure, sampling frame and tracking method of the survey, and provides an overview of the topics covered by the dataset, and a review of the existing studies based on RUMiC data. JEL codes C81; J01; P36; R23

This paper analyzes job referral effects that are based on residential location. We use georeferenced record data for the entire working population (liable to social security) and the corresponding establishments in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area, which is Germany's largest (and EU's second largest) metropolitan area. We estimate the propensity of two persons to work at the same place when residing in the same neighborhood (reported with an accuracy of 500m×500m grid cells), and compare the effect to people living in adjacent neighborhoods. We find a significant increase in the probability of working together when living in the same neighborhood, which is stable across various specifications. We differentiate these referral effects for socioeconomic groups and find especially strong effects for migrant groups from former guestworker countries and new EU countries. Further, we are able to investigate a number of issues in order to deepen the insight on actual job referrals: distinguishing between the effects on working in the same neighborhood and working in the same establishment - probably the more accurate measure for job referrals - shows that the latter yield overall smaller effects. Further, we find that clusters in employment although having a significant positive effect play only a minor role for the magnitude of the referral effect. When we exclude short distance commuters, we find the same probabilities of working together, which reinforces our interpretation of this probability as a network effect. Diese Studie untersucht die Effekte von Job-Empfehlungen, die aus dem Wohnumfeld herrühren. Wir verwenden geocodierte Prozessdaten für die erwerbstätige Bevölkerung (in sozialversicherungspflichtiger und geringfügiger Beschäftigung) und die entsprechenden Betriebe in der Metropolregion Rhein-Ruhr, Deutschlands größter Metropolregion (und die zweitgrößte der EU). Wir schätzen die Wahrscheinlichkeit, mit der zwei Personen am selben Ort arbeiten, wenn sie in derselben Nachbarschaft wohnen (gemessen in einem 500m × 500m Raster), und vergleichen diese mit der Wahrscheinlichkeit, wenn eine der beiden Personen in einer angrenzenden Rasterzelle wohnt. Wir finden einen signifikanten Zuwachs in der Wahrscheinlichkeit zusammen zu arbeiten wenn die Personen in derselben Nachbarschaft wohnen; dieser Befund bleibt über verschiedene Spezifikationen robust. Wir differenzieren die Empfehlungseffekte nach sozioökonomischen Gruppen und finden vor allem für Migranten aus den traditionellen Gastarbeiterentsendeländer und aus den neuen EU-Mitgliedsstaaten starke Effekte. Darüber hinaus können wir eine Reihe von Aspekten untersuchen, um das Verständnis bezüglich Job-Empfehlungen zu vertiefen: Die Unterscheidung zwischen dem Effekt auf Zusammenarbeit in derselben Nachbarschaft und demselben Betrieb - möglicherweise das genauere Maß für Job-Empfehlungen - zeigt, dass letztere insgesamt kleiner ausfallen. Darüber hinaus finden wir, dass die Konzentration von Beschäftigung zwar auch einen positiven Zusammenhang erzeugt, aber nur eine kleine Rolle im Hinblick auf die Größenordnung des Empfehlungseffektes spielt.Wenn wir Kurzstreckenpendler (innerhalb desselben Postleitzahlbezirks) ausschließen, bleiben die Wahrscheinlichkeiten gemeinsam zu arbeiten unverändert, was unsere Interpretation dieser Wahrscheinlichkeit als Netzwerkeffekt untermauert.

Will the projected decline in the youth share of European countries' populations alleviate the currently high levels of youth unemployment in Europe? Economic theory predicts that in the absence of perfectly competitive labour markets, changes in the relative size of age groups will cause changes in age-specific unemployment rates. In light of the expected development of the youth population's size over the coming decades, this paper utilises the existing heterogeneity in the structure of youth populations across European countries and regions to identify the effect of nationally and regionally defined age-cohort size on the probability of young individuals being unemployed. To account for the possibility that individuals self-select into areas of low unemployment, the empirical analysis employs an instrumental variables estimator to identify the causal effect of age-cohort size. The results show that individuals in larger cohorts are more likely to be unemployed and that this effect is more pronounced when analysis is conducted at the regional level. While shrinking youth cohorts therefore have the potential to contribute to improving the current youth unemployment situation, this mechanism should not be relied in isolation upon due to the relatively greater importance of changes in the macroeconomic environment.

As an old Chinese proverb says, "visiting monks give better sermons." European soccer clubs also believe this, and have always been seeking for foreign players to boost competitiveness. However, due to the reason of protectionism, there were restrictions that each club was only allowed to field up to three foreign players. In 1995, the "Bosman Ruling" was made, resulting that restrictions on foreign players were widely relaxed for soccer clubs in the European Union (EU), and the European soccer market has become highly globalized since then. Due to the nature of soccer competitions, it is impossible that the "Bosman Ruling" improves sporting performance for all clubs. It thus raises a question: who benefits from globalization of labor? From the perspective of economic inequality, will this ruling affect competitive balance of soccer leagues in Europe? This paper examines the pre- and post-Bosman change of the sporting performance distance between previously strong clubs and lower-ranking clubs in 32 premier soccer leagues in Europe. We notice the problem in the previous literature that estimations of the treatment effect of the "Bosman Ruling" are confounded with other soccer policy and rule changes. To solve this problem, we employ Difference-in-Difference-in-Differences (DDD) to control for omitted variables. Because the "Bosman Ruling" was made within the EU, it naturally created a Bosman region and a non-Bosman region. Using DDD, the treatment effect of the "Bosman Ruling" is identified at the distance-region-period level. Based on two sporting performance measures, i.e., the points per match and the goal difference per match, we estimate that the distance between previously strong and lower-ranking clubs increased by at least 20% in the post-Bosman period. Somewhat surprisingly, it is the distance between previously strong and median-ranking clubs that increased most, though the general pattern is that all lower-ranking clubs suffered loss. We also conduct IV regressions of the pre- and post-Bosman change of the distance between previously strong and lower-ranking clubs on the pre- and post-Bosman change of the number of foreign players in previously strong clubs. OLS can raise the endogeneity problem because sporting performance might also affect transfer decisions of foreign players. Therefore, we use the treatment variable (i.e., the dummy describing whether the club is in the Bosman region) as the instrument of the regressor, i.e., pre- and post-Bosman change of the number of foreign players. Similar with DDD estimations, we find that the influx of foreign players caused that the distance between previously strong and lower-ranking clubs increased after the "Bosman Ruling". Using both DDD and IV, we observe that previously strong clubs significantly benefited from globalization of labor. Soccer leagues in Europe became more unbalanced after the "Bosman Ruling".

The 2008 economic crisis raised concerns about unemployment, especially for youths. Over the last decade, two stylized facts can be observed in the French labor market about youth unemployment: its average rate remaining at high levels and its major spatial variations. This paper investigates the impact of neighborhood contexts in getting a job. The identification of these effects from the sorting process requires implementing specific identification strategies. Two complementary approaches are developed in this paper using representative samples of youths leaving the French educational system (Génération 1998 and Génération 2004 panel surveys from the Céreq). In both estimation strategies, the positive impact of local employment conditions on job access remains significant suggesting that the labor market context matters to successfully enter the job market. The results from this study can shed light on the employment gap observed between African immigrants and natives' children in France.

This paper presents the various analytical steps and methods which have led to the creation of a geodatabase of urban settlements in Europe based on the integration of contiguous 1x1 square km. grid cells with specific population thresholds, and the delimitation and classification of those among them that are considered "small and medium-sized towns" (SMST) in coherence with the standard classification already produced by organisms such as DG Regio and OECD. This exercise has been one of the key analytical dimension of the ESPON 2013 project "TOWN" on the role and performance of small and medium sized towns , and is meant to define and organise what is "urban" ? and what, in this context, is a small and medium sized town. However functional to subsequent tasks, this geomatic exercise is per se a relevant legacy of this project: from a methodological point of view, because it contributes towards the generation of a geo-database at the finest spatial scale beyond the limitations of unevenness in scale, nomenclature, and political status, which is known to affect spatial analysis carried out at the "traditional" administrative levels of NUTS2/3 or even LAU2. From a scientific point of view, because it provides a first impression of territorial structures of urbanisation throughout Europe, at different scales: the pan-European, illustrating the diversity of the European space in terms of the prevailing settlement types and their territorial distribution; the regional, especially in relation to urban and metropolitan systems, their compactness and nuclear form; and the local, which looks at the inner structure of urban settlements. This paper will focus especially on such scientific results. It will present different typologies of Small and medium-sized town which challenge established notions (from an administrative and an employment-based perspective) of what in fact is a town, and will attempt at a synthesis between these perspectives based on the degree of matching between morphologically defined towns and other ?urban nomenclatures' in a number of case studies, carried out within the TOWN project.

Current developed economies' growth becomes increasingly dependent on the performance of innovation and skill-intensive industries. Therefore, the ability of cities to attract skilled or highly-educated individuals becomes more and more important for their growth and economic development. In this research we estimate a residential sorting model in order to shed light on the factors that determine the location choices of foreign skilled workers. We do so by estimating their valuation of various urban amenities in the municipalities of the densely populated Randstad area in the west of the Netherlands, and investigating which amenities increase the attractiveness of these municipalities. We also consider heterogeneity in individual preferences, and compare housing preferences and marginal willingness to pay for amenities between groups based on skill levels and origin. We find that job opportunities, accessibility, natural amenities and presence of historic monuments and buildings are highly valued by both domestic and migrants with high-education. Our results also provide evidence that social amenities, such as an existing community of migrants in a municipality, have an important role in determining the attractiveness of a location.

Even though ethnic clustering is common, both economic theory and empirical research have not been able to provide a clear-cut answer on its effects on the integration of immigrants. In this paper, we study the effect of residential clustering on the labour market outcome of immigrants in Germany. Thereby, we use two measures for labour market integration: the employment probability and the wage levels. Our paper contributes to the existing literature twofold: First, we extend it to Germany on which hardly any research has been conducted. Second, we employ a new methodological approach which allows for the identification of smaller ethnic clusters and thus a more precise estimation of its effects. This is achieved by including neighbouring spatial units in the regression model. In order to control for the endogeneity of the location decision, we use a two-step strategy, combining a control function and an instrumental variable (IV) approach. We observe immigrant clustering in Germany, using a Moran s I analysis. In addition, the analysis suggests the importance of residential clustering for the employment probability of immigrants, and for second or higher generation migrants, a positive impact of clustering on wages.