Research
Research
Effect of migration on careers of natives: evidence from long-term care [IZA DP]
joint with Peter Haan
Abstract: This paper examines the effect of increasing foreign staffing on the labor market outcomes of native workers in the German long-term care sector. Using administrative social security data covering the universe of long-term care workers and policy-induced exogenous variation, we find that increased foreign staffing reduces labor shortages but has diverging implications for the careers of native workers in the sector. While it causes a transition of those currently employed to jobs with better working conditions, higher wages, and non-manual tasks, it simultaneously diminishes re-employment prospects for the unemployed natives with LTC experience.
Featured in the BSoE Insights (EN) and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (DE).
The Effect of Immigration on Prices: Evidence from Nursing Homes
joint with Peter Haan and Julia Schmieder
Abstract: We study how immigration affects prices, focusing on the nursing home sector. Using policy-driven increases in immigration to Germany and administrative data covering the universe of nursing homes, we show that an additional foreign-born woman per 100 inhabitants reduces care prices by 2.6 percent. Because the inflow consists of working-age individuals who do not consume care services, the setting isolates the production-side channel. The effects are concentrated in more competitive market segments. We find no impact on inspection-based quality. Price declines reflect lower labor costs, driven by a compositional shift toward lower-paid foreign workers, and increased competition from informal care.
Migration and native health: new evidence from the workplace
[JMP - new draft coming soon]
Abstract: This paper evaluates the impact of immigration on the incidence of severe health shocks at the workplace level. Using rich linked employer-employee data from Germany and an instrumental variable leveraging policy variation, I show that firms with a higher concentration of foreign workers experience lower rates of long-term sickness among their employees. Decomposing the rates by gender and worker origin reveals that these health improvements are concentrated entirely among native men, are particularly pronounced in medium-sized construction and trade companies, and are driven by the firm's foreign new hires. The primary mechanism is a lower relative participation of native male workers in manual tasks at the firm, particularly in industries with high health risks. Further analysis confirms that these effects are not due to the substitution of less healthy natives, the evolution of norms around absenteeism, differences in firm expansion trends, or reverse causality.
Extending Unemployment Benefits for Older Workers: Effects on Unemployment Duration and the Interaction with the Pension System
joint with Ewa Gałecka-Burdziak, Jonas Jessen and Robin Jessen
Abstract: We exploit discontinuities in the unemployment insurance (UI) system in Poland to identify the causal effect of potential benefit duration and benefit level on unemployment outcomes of older workers. In particular, we exploit how these key parameters of the UI system interact with each other and the pension system. Duration elasticities for older workers are of a similar magnitude than for prime-age workers, but the disincentive effects of the UI system are amplified due to the interaction with the pension system. We document spikes in inflows into unemployment at an age which allows worker to directly transition from unemployment into pre-retirement. These spikes are particularly pronounced for women whose statutory retirement age is five years younger than men's. We complement the reduced-form analysis with a welfare analysis to quantify the fiscal externality of UI policies for older workers.