Wage Inequality and Immigration: Western-Europe in the Sixties

This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data

Wage Inequality and Immigration: Western-Europe in the Sixties

Author Info

N. CHUSSEAU
M. DUMONT
J. HELLIER
G. RAYP ()
P. WILLEMÉ

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

Abstract

We analyse the immigration flows to Western Europe in the sixties. We develop a theoretical model tailored to account for some of the key features of this period, i.e., trade in manufacturing that essentially involved advanced countries, the growing administration of labour markets in Western Europe and the huge inflow of low skilled immigrants from the South (less advanced countries) into Western Europe. Two propositions are subsequently derived from this model. First, the immigration flow increases with the skill premium in the country of destination. Second, for a given skill premium, immigration is an increasing function of both the host country’s working population and its relative endowment in skilled labour. The first proposition reflects a demand side effect that diverges from the result of the traditional self-selecting approach to migration, i.e., that a higher skill premium in the country of destination tends to discourage potential low-skilled migrants. Estimations implemented for a panel of four European countries (Belgium, France, Sweden and West Germany) over the period 1960-1975 corroborate to a large extent our propositions. We also find that none of the supply determinants are individually significant at equilibrium. These results confirm the hypothesis that immigration to Western Europe in the sixties was primarily demand driven.

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.

Publisher Info
Paper provided by Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in its series Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium with number 07/471.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length: 23 pages
Date of creation: Jun 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:rug:rugwps:07/471

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Hoveniersberg 4, B-9000 Gent
Phone: ++ 32 (0) 9 264 34 61
Fax: ++ 32 (0) 9 264 35 92
Web page: http://www.feb.ugent.be/
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Nathalie Verhaeghe).

Find related papers by JEL classification:
F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

NEP-ALL-2007-09-02 (All new papers)
NEP-INT-2007-09-02 (International Trade)
NEP-LAB-2007-09-02 (Labour Economics)
NEP-MIG-2007-09-02 (Economics of Human Migration)

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Did you know? You too can volunteer for RePEc, for example by editing a NEP report.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-26.

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.