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The return to big-city experience: Evidence from refugees in Denmark

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  • Eckert, Fabian
  • Hejlesen, Mads
  • Walsh, Conor

Abstract

We offer causal evidence of higher returns to experience in big cities. Exploiting a natural experiment that settled refugees across labor markets in Denmark between 1986 and 1998, we find that refugees initially earned similar wages across locations. However, those placed in Copenhagen exhibited 35% faster wage growth with each additional year of experience. Faster sorting of workers toward the type of establishments, occupations, and industries typically found in cities accounts for the vast majority of this urban wage-growth premium.

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  • Eckert, Fabian & Hejlesen, Mads & Walsh, Conor, 2022. "The return to big-city experience: Evidence from refugees in Denmark," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:130:y:2022:i:c:s0094119022000316
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2022.103454
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    4. Kemeny, Tom & Storper, Michael, 2022. "The changing shape of spatial inequality in the United States," SocArXiv wnd8t, Center for Open Science.
    5. Clémence Berson & Pierre-Philippe Combes & Laurent Gobillon & Aurélie Sotura, 2023. "Time-Varying Agglomeration Economies and Aggregate Wage Growth," Working Papers hal-04346733, HAL.
    6. Connor, Dylan Shane & Berg, Aleksander K & Kemeny, Tom & Kedron, Peter, 2023. "Who gets left behind by left behind places?," SocArXiv nkydt, Center for Open Science.
    7. Perl, Maximilian, 2023. "Agglomerations, tasks and wage growth," Ruhr Economic Papers 999, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.

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