This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

How Different are Wages from Wage Potentials? - Analyzing the earnings disadvantage of immigrants in Germany

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
Guenter Lang () (University of Augsburg, Department of Economics)

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

Immigrants in Germany display a poor earnings performance relative to natives. Arguing that human capital endowments identify earnings potentials rather than actual earnings, this paper estimates a stochastic earnings frontier and searches for systematic differences between natives and migrants in terms of distance to the frontier. GSOEP-Data of the year 2000 is used for estimation. The empirical results clearly support the frontier assumption, but – surprisingly – find natives and immigrants at about the same distance to the frontier. Assuming a half-normal distribution of the wage-inefficiency term, both groups trans­formed on average a modest 81% share of their potential income into market earnings. Due to the similar positions of natives and immigrants relative to the frontier, the wage discrimination hypothesis is rejected. Actually, human capital differentials are clearly the most important source for wage inequality. The earnings frontiers of immigrants from Eastern Europe as well as from Turkey are steeper than the respective frontier of natives, which supports the assimilation hypothesis. No assimilation is found for migrants from the European Union and from the former Yugoslavia.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.wiwi.uni-augsburg.de/vwl/institut/paper/256.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Paper provided by Universitaet Augsburg, Institute for Economics in its series Discussion Paper Series with number 256.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: pages
Date of creation: Jan 2004
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:aug:augsbe:0256

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Universitaetsstrasse 16, D-86159 Augsburg, Germany
Phone: +49 821 598 4189
Fax: +49 821 598 4217
Email:
Web page: http://www.wiwi.uni-augsburg.de/vwl/institut
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Dr. Ekkehard Baron von Knorring).

Related research
Keywords: Stochastic Wage Frontier; Inefficiency; Immigration; Assimilation; Discrimination; Human Capital Approach;

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

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

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. Polachek, Solomon W. & Robst, John, 1998. "Employee labor market information: comparing direct world of work measures of workers' knowledge to stochastic frontier estimates," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 231-242, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. 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:
  4. George J. Borjas, 1994. "The Economics of Immigration," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1667-1717, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. 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)
  6. 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)
  7. Bauer, Thomas & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 1997. "Unemployment and wages of ethnic Germans," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(Supplemen), pages 361-377. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Polachek, Solomon W & Yoon, Bong Joon, 1996. "Panel Estimates of a Two-Tiered Earnings Frontier," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(2), pages 169-78, March-Apr. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Schmidt, Christoph M., 1997. "Immigrant performance in Germany: Labor earnings of ethnic German migrants and foreign guest-workers," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(Supplemen), pages 379-397. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-32.
  11. 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)
Full references

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. Sharif, Najma R. & Dar, Atul A., 2007. "An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of Imperfect Information on Wages in Canada," Review of Applied Economics, Review of Applied Economics, vol. 3(1-2). [Downloadable!]
  2. Solomon W. Polachek & Jun (Jeff) Xiang, 2005. "The Effects of Incomplete Employee Wage Information: A Cross-Country Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 1735, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? Over 80% of the top 1000 economists are registered on RePEc.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-8.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.