Get together – 21 December

Marriage migration, i.e., the practice of searching and marrying a spouse away from home, has been recognized as an economic strategy in many developing countries. In her research, Ariane investigates the role of location for a marital match in Indonesia using a general equilibrium, two-sided matching model with transferable utility and estimating preferences over spousal and location types. Initial evidence suggests that couples with a migrant spouse tend to be better educated and live in more urban areas with higher wages. Therefore, she further aims to explore the consequences of marriage migration on local marriage markets and economic opportunities of the spouses.

Aleksa’s first chapter revisits the question of how exposure to immigration impacts prejudice in a highly multicultural society like Luxembourg. The study is distinctive in its approach in that it links individual survey data with administrative data to observe population counts at a very granular level. The findings reveal a nuanced view where recent immigration impacts specific opinions among Luxembourg-born and foreign-born residents differently. The second chapter is an ongoing field work on the impact of compulsory mobility abroad, such as the Erasmus program, on three interconnected outcomes: national and supra-national identity, trust, and future mobility intentions. The research design uses a multi-wave online survey for both a treatment and a non-experimental control group to capture pre- and post-exchange outcomes. The unique sample of participants allows to overcome selection bias into the participation to the program. The study also investigates the potential development of an “exchange student identity” and its effects through a randomized controlled experiment.       

Gauthier’s research explores the effects of armed conflicts on industrial mining production in sub-Saharan Africa and investigate the potential underlying mechanisms. We find that battle events have a positive impact on mines’ production level when located between 5 and 20 km away from a mine. Drawing on existing theory, we posit that proximity to air transport infrastructure contributes to the ease of evacuating high value minerals from affected areas and thus exacerbates the positive impact of battles on production. Then, we advance that mining firms may benefit from exposure to conflicts because these conflicts reflect territorial dispute where neither the authorities nor rebel forces have enough control to oversee and tax resources. 

Considering that trust is an important determinant of life satisfaction, economic growth and firm performance, Abilio profits from the specific context provided by Luxembourg to investigate the transmission of social norms from the high-trust Germans to the low-trust French. His contribution is tackling social norms transmission in a controlled experimental setting and using a third country as the “mixing bowl”, as opposed to studies on assimilation into the predominant culture. Through his five-treatment experiment, he expects to identify a convergence in trust between the French and the Germans, with the final equilibrium being slightly higher than Luxembourg’s trust levels. Cultural diversity and internationality conditional on non-segregation are advanced as the main mechanism behind this expected convergence. Other potential mechanisms are investigated. Rather than being a geolocated research question, he argues that this study has applications and policy implications for most countries in all continents.

Adrij’s research interests intersect in human mobility, labor markets, and causal inference. In this multidisciplinary scope, he is presently engaged in two projects. The first examines the causal effects of the German Unemployment Insurance benefits (a form of passive labor market policy) on the propensity of the beneficiaries to undertake internal migration. Concurrently, the second project estimates the effects of Senegal’s universal healthcare policy of Senegal on an array of socio-demographic and labor outcomes, with a particular focus on antenatal care provisions.

Aurélie investigates how the locust invasions in 1874 have impacted internal migration patterns, as well as agricultural development in 19th century North America. Her identification strategy utilizes an instrumental variable approach based on environmental variables associated with locust swarm dynamics, specifically weather patterns, humidity, and vegetation conditions that we retrieve from the 20th Century Reanalysis Project by NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL) to proxy the infestation’s intensity and spread. She assumes that the locust plague significantly impacted agricultural outcomes, forcing farmers to diversify their production, switching crops or transitioning to dairy farming. Moreover, we aim to demonstrate empirically that the locust plague spurred considerable intra- or interstate movements among individuals whose farm livelihoods were affected.

Julio’s first project provides a literature review on the role of citizenship in immigrant integration. It finds that citizenship accelerates economic, educational, political, and social integration of immigrants. The study also notes that the uptake of citizenship varies across different countries and is influenced by the eligibility rules in place. It concludes that citizenship significantly aids in the integration process for immigrants. Moreover, his second project utilizes the changes in Germany’s citizenship laws to assess the impact of more liberal citizenship policies on the labor market integration of migrants. By exploiting the residency requirement discontinuity and implementing a fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Design, the study provides a clear identification of the causal effects of liberal citizenship policies. It particularly highlights that these reforms have a substantial positive effect on the labor market outcomes of immigrant women. Finally, his third project focuses on Airbnb in New York City, this study uses advanced image classification algorithms to explore racial disparities among hosts. It finds that Black hosts experience a 6% lower occupancy rate than White hosts, with no significant differences in pricing or occupancy rates for Asian and Hispanic hosts compared to White hosts. The study also evaluates an Airbnb anti-discrimination policy that aimed to reduce discrimination by making host profile pictures less prominent. Contrary to its intent, the policy increased the occupancy rate disparity between White and Black hosts by approximately 4%, suggesting the policy’s ineffectiveness in achieving its anti-discrimination goals.

Raian addresses in the paper presented the pressing issue of cross-border traffic congestion in Luxembourg, where more than half of the labor force is comprised of international workers. While the removal of congestion is generally considered positive for production, our study employs a quantitative spatial urban model to uncover potential negative consequences for residents. First, he analyzes commuting patterns and transportation mode choices among residents and cross-border commuters. Subsequently, he estimates the cross-border congestion effect and assess the broader implications of congestion removal. His findings shed light on the delicate balance between economic growth and potential challenges faced by residents in terms of increased housing costs and intensified labor competition.

Etienne’s research focuses on the relationship between international migrations and public attitudes towards migration. In his first two projects, he studies whether anti-immigration attitudes in destination countries have an effect on future migration flows, either by making the country less attractive or by implementing more restrictive immigration policies. In his third project, he takes a more historical perspective by looking at the large Irish migration to the United States in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century to study the diffusion of political and societal norms in Ireland. He uses thousands of letters written by Irish migrants and sent back home to analyze patterns of selection in letters writing, as well as the information (or the absence of information) shared by migrants about their socioeconomic situation in the US, their religiosity, or their political attitudes towards the Irish war of independence

Narcisse’s research revisits the skill-biased migration development nexus through four papers. The first paper proposes a generalized approach to assess how selective emigration impacts origin countries, simultaneously accounting for the main feedback effects of migration established by the literature up to data (education incentives, diaspora externalities, aggregate total productivity externality, fiscal externalities, market size, and remittances). Results indicate that selective emigration stimulates human capital accumulation and income levels, particularly in the least developed countries, reducing cross-country income inequality and the world population living in extreme poverty. The second paper focuses on Senegal, revealing that brain gain mechanisms primarily benefit wealthier, and internationally connected regions with better education infrastructures. The third paper explores the impact of positive economic shocks on internal and international migration decisions in Senegal, finding a 13% reduction in internal migration and a 17% decrease in migration to transit countries like Morocco and Libya, especially among the youngest age group (15-24). These effects get stronger with education levels. The fourth paper investigates how heterogeneous exposure to migration across space influences the geography of development in Senegal. Regions with net in-migration experience real income gains, while those with net out-migration face losses, offset in some cases by remittances. At the country level, average exposure to internal and international migration leads to a 6% increase in real income per capita and a 5.5% boost in welfare, driven by the endogenous relationship between economic activity, employment density, and migration.

During the last year, Felix Stips started working on his job market paper. The project focuses on the impact of immigration following EU Eastern Enlargement on the German labor market and analyzes these effects in the context of imperfectly competitive labor markets. During the fall quarter 2023 he visited the University of California, Davis to work on the project.

Lucas’ research has explored location patterns of commerce in the context of increasing digitalization. The first project explores, theoretically, the effects of online shopping and telecommuting on urban areas, highlighting the positive impact on city fringe expansion and the downside for traditional retail in central areas. The second project extends the model further, emphasizing the role of personal preferences in shaping commerce distribution, particularly how local-buying preferences are essential for deconcentrating shops. The final phase of this research explores the relevance of the ’15-minute city’ concept in urban planning, examining how European cities are relating to this idea.

Currently, Javier is researching the incentive effect of the migration prospect to an attractive foreign labor market in the educational choice of students, exploiting the unique setting of Luxembourg and the French region of Lorraine. Using discrete choice models, this incentive effect of employability and wages in Luxembourg on French students interesting in this country is found to be very strong and robust to deviations from IIA, endogeneity and placebos. Preliminarily, the incentive effect of Luxembourg can be quantified as being almost as half as important as the French labor market when influencing the students’ choices.