Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/36157 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 4619
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
During the last decade there have been marked changes in the composition of the non-native workforce in the German labour market. In particular there has been a notable increase in the diversity of nationalities of which the foreign workforce is composed. In this paper we investigate the effects of this diversity for native employees. Our analysis is conducted at the local level and uses a panel of 326 Western German regions over the time period 1995-2006. When considering high-skilled foreign workers, we find that both the size of this group and the diversification into different nationalities raise local wages and employment for native employees. For low-skilled foreign workers we find negative size effects. However, these negative effects can be partly offset if the group of low-skilled foreigners is culturally diversified. Our results imply that diversity raises productivity at the local level, but that it is important to distinguish the skill composition of the foreign workforce. These findings remain robust in a variety of robustness checks that take into account omitted variable bias, self-selection of foreigners into particular regions, and spatial autocorrelation.
Subjects: 
Regional labour markets
cultural diversity
immigration
spatial equilibrium
JEL: 
R23
J21
J31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
257.08 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.