Diana Carolina Gutierrez Gonzalez (p)

Artjoms Ivlevs

Economic theory has focused on the effects of migration on natives labor outcomes, concluding that these effects are null. These results rely on a framework that is built for developed countries. However, the migration literature has gaps in explaining the mechanisms by which migration is absorbed into the labor market, even more, in a context where the informal sector is large as in developing countries. This article examines the extent to which the oversupply of labor from Venezuelan immigrants in Bogota-Colombia has an internal adjustment without affecting the local labor market of natives. We claim that is through the expansion on the number of firms (named extensive margin) by which inflow migrants is absorbed and have positive effects on the hosting labor markets rather than as traditional literature predicts by means of one firm hiring more labor (intensive margin). In addition, few studies have approximated these gaps by incorporating the spatial dimension and the importance of spillover effects. By implementing a spatial fixed effects Durbin Spatial Model, we evaluate the effect of Venezuelan migration on the proliferation of formal and informal firms across 1.171 neighborhoods in Bogota, for the period 2013-2022. The results confirmed that, on average, a 1% rise in the density of lagged migrants in a neighborhood of the city, increases the density of formal and informal firms lower than 1%. There is not evidence that migration generates spillover effects on the proliferation of formal firms (direct effects are lower than 1% and indirect effects are null). However, migration seems to have strong positive spillover effects on informal firms (direct effects are positive (1.0876 percentual points), indirect effects are six times greater (6.8949 percentual points)). A Weighted Geographic Regression is also implemented to examine whether the relationship between lagged migration and firms creation is consistent across the territory. It is found that only on a set of physical polygons such relation is significant. Each one concentrates different types of migrants features. These polygons are key for focusing the migration urban policy in a featured-differentiated way. During the initial period of Venezuelan migration, central CBD neighborhoods were key for creation of formal firms. While, after 2018, Venezuelan migration was key for creation outside the CBD in the southern periphery of the city.

Kerstin Tanis (p)

Diana Carolina Gutierrez Gonzalez

Using a quasi-experimental setting, I examine the effect of housing on integration for recent refugees in Germany. In contrast to previous studies investigating the effect of placement policies on integration, my approach does not focus on regional, but on housing characteris-tics. The fact that Germany assigned recent refugees not only to a location, but also to a cer-tain type of accommodation, which is either private or shared, provides exogenous variation that allows for studying the effect of housing on integration appropriately. I argue that the housing situation is an equally important determinant in the integration process as location, but in a more comprehensive and measurable way. Derived from theory and associated aca-demic findings of locational placement on integration, I assume that the placement to private accommodations accelerates refugees’ integration process, while shared accommodations decelerate integration. Referring to popular integration dimensions, this may be especially true in terms of language acquisition, social integration, and the identification with the host country. For structural integration, e.g. employment, I expect in the special case of recent refugees and their lack of “ethnic economies” no differences between refugees in private and shared accommodations. Preliminary results from fixed effects regression that control for unobserv-able individual heterogeneity based on the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees confirm the outlined considerations regarding effect direction and size. The study contributes to the litera-ture by offering a new perspective of placement polices on integration and providing practical implications for governments.

M. Joaquín Lopez-Huertas (p)

Kerstin Tanis

Irregular migration represents a phenomenon that requires an exhaustive analysis beyond conventional methods in order to be understood. In the case of Guatemala, with an increasing flow of irregular migrants to the US every year, little attention has been paid to the study of the factors that influence these events. Bayesian spatial analysis represents an alternative to studying this phenomenon by estimating the probability of events like irregular migration. Instead of focusing on accuracy in defining relationships among variables like frequentist models, Bayesian estimates trends that may arise based on available data. In this project, I conduct a Bayesian spatial analysis to understand the incidence of five socio-ecological components (insecurity, cultural, economic, governance, and environmental) with the number of irregular migrants to the US from Guatemala. I conduct the study on the Municipio (Towns) territorial scale and pay particular attention to Indigenous People/s, the most vulnerable group in the country due to the inequalities and limitations experienced every day. By considering an initial number of 15 variables, I conduct a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to prioritize the elements that explain the variance. Then, I apply Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations (INLA) in R-Software to develop a model that describes the trends, spatial effects, and exceedance rates of migrants in the following years. The results suggest the importance of accounting for a spatial location where migration flows is more prevalent and provide trends on the probabilities of increasing rates in some Municipios compared with others, including the differences between urban and rural populations. The comparison between Indigenous and non-Indigenous People/s suggests the need for a cultural understanding of Indigenous ways of being where racism and coloniality are embedded within Guatemalan society. This study offers a methodological and practical application for similar cases and allows to inform planning strategies in order to mitigate the effects of irregular migration in non-developed countries.

Artjomes Ivles (p), Zuzanna Brunarska

M. Joaquín Lopez-Huertas

In many European countries, falling birth rates imply population ageing and decline. Immigration has often been considered as one of the ways to offset these trends. While immigration may indeed replenish and rejuvenate populations of host countries and provide solutions to a range of social and economic issues, it may also generate a backlash from local people. To determine whether demographic decline makes Europeans more positive attitudes towards immigration, we undertake a longitudinal, regional-level analysis linking individual attitudes towards immigration to local-level demographic indicators. Using data from the 2008-2019 European Social Survey (>160,000 respondents from 278 regions in 22 countries) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (30,000 respondents over 2000-2020 in 16 states), we find a strong relationship between individual attitudes towards immigration and local-level demographics: specifically, people become more positive towards immigration when the birth rates and natural population increase rates in their regions fall. Among other things, this finding implies that policies aiming at offsetting population ageing and decline with immigration are likely to receive public support.