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Native-Immigrant Wage Differentials in Germany - Assimilation, Discrimination, or Human Capital?

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Author Info
Guenter Lang () (University of Augsburg, Department of Economics)

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Abstract

This study uses the concept of stochastic frontiers for analyzing the income disparity between ethnic groups in West Germany. Estimation of a potential rather than an average earnings function increases the explanatory power of the human capital approach and allows for detecting discrimination as well as assimilation processes. The empirical results im-ply that the human capital gap explains more than 75% of the wage differential between natives and foreign nationalities in Germany. As for ethnic Germans migrants, their wage disparity can be explained by 50% with human capital differentials. Surprisingly, only small differences could be observed with regard to the question of earnings efficiency. On an average, inhabitants as well as immigrants transformed about 85% to 90% of their potential income into actual earnings. The sources for the individually diverging efficiency ratios are not well understood, with discrimination only found for ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe. Somewhat disappointing, the assimilation hypothesis was clearly rejected for all migrants with again the exception being ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe.

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Paper provided by Universitaet Augsburg, Institute for Economics in its series Discussion Paper Series with number 197.

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Date of creation: Aug 2000
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Handle: RePEc:aug:augsbe:0197

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Hofler, Richard A. & Polachek, Solomon W., 1985. "A new approach for measuring wage ignorance in the labor market," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 267-276, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Allen N. Berger & David B. Humphrey, 1997. "Efficiency of financial institutions: international survey and directions for future research," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1997-11, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Borjas, George J, 1985. "Assimilation, Changes in Cohort Quality, and the Earnings of Immigrants," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(4), pages 463-89, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Dustmann, C, 1993. "Earnings Adjustment of Temporary Migrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 153-68, May.
  5. Jondrow, James & Knox Lovell, C. A. & Materov, Ivan S. & Schmidt, Peter, 1982. "On the estimation of technical inefficiency in the stochastic frontier production function model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 233-238, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Darity, William A, Jr & Mason, Patrick L, 1998. "Evidence on Discrimination in Employment: Codes of Color, Codes of Gender," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 63-90, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Greene, William H., 1990. "A Gamma-distributed stochastic frontier model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 141-163. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Daneshvary, Nasser, et al, 1992. "Job Search and Immigrant Assimilation: An Earnings Frontier Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(3), pages 482-92, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. DeVoretz, Don J., 2004. "Immigration Policy: Methods of Economic Assessment," IZA Discussion Papers 1217, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  2. Björn Christensen, 2002. "Reservation Wages, Offered Wages, and Unemployment Duration — New Empirical Evidence," Kiel Working Papers 1095, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
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