Gabor Lados (p)

Stephan Brunow

In the last two years, the global frameworks of international migration have completely changed. In a European context, Brexit has previously reshaped the migration networks within the European Union, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought unknown effects in migration in 2020. Those involved in international migration had to deal with new challenges, not just physically (e.g., restrictions on the borders, cancelled flights) or administratively (e.g., compulsory quarantine after arrival), but emotionally (e.g., collective stigmatisation, see O’Brien and Eger 2021), as well. All these barriers and negative prejudices outmigrants received in the host society can result their return to the home country, partly driven by these kind of push factors. Though, the most of these obstacles seem to be temporary, as the vaccination programs continue gradually worldwide, some of them could stay longer, mainly in the micro- or individual level. These new drivers of migration could influence the migration decisions in a short- and medium-term. The aim of this presentation is to highlight the newly created drivers of return migration caused by the COVID-19 since 2020, with a special attention to the East-Central-European countries. During the research, these pandemic-related drivers in the migration decision making process will be analysed through a literature analysis, and the results will be compared with a previous empirical analysis (Lados 2018) from the pre-COVID era.

Elena Heller (p), Paula Prenzel

Gabor Lados

A diverse mix of immigrants within a region provides a range of knowledge, skills, and ideas, which may foster regional innovation. However, this cultural diversity could also negatively impact innovation: communication barriers, conflict and intergroup biases, for example, may pose hurdles for cooperation and increase transaction costs. So far, empirical analyses of the relationship between cultural diversity and innovation show mixed results. This raises the question, whether regional institutional factors may be at play in reducing the costs and utilising the potential of diversity. Considering that the innovative effect of diversity may rely on knowledge transfer and joint problem-solving, institutional settings governing the exchange between heterogeneous actors could take on a crucial moderating role.
This paper explores the role of informal institutional characteristics in moderating the innovative effect of diversity across European regions. Using data from the European Eurobarometer survey, we conceptualise “inclusive institutions” along two dimensions: (i) attitudes towards immigration and (ii) the prevalence of social interaction between migrants and natives. Combining measures of these dimensions with data on cultural diversity from the European Labour Force Survey and patents from the REGPAT database, we investigate whether regions with more inclusive institutions benefit more strongly from cultural diversity.
The results shed light on the largely understudied role of institutions in the economic and innovative effect of immigration and contribute to our understanding of the consequences of institutional differences across European regions.

Stephan Brunow (p), Oskar Jost

Elena Heller

This paper sheds light on the wage structure of foreign and German employees who are subject to social security contributions in fulltime employment and focuses on the experience structure. Existing evidence suggests that additional labour market experience is rewarded less for migrants than for their German counterparts. We identify and discuss reasons and explanations for migrants’ fl at experience curves, which is particularly important in the light of the debate on inequality between both groups. These explanations include: the recognition of vocational training degrees, the successful passing of vocational training in Germany, German citizenship by naturalisation, and the labour market experience. After ten to 15 years in the German labour market, we identify convergence in the returns to labour
market experience.