We study how the EU enlargement in 2004 and the Great Recession in the late 2000s have shaped the scale and composition of migration flows from the New Member States to Germany. We demonstrate that immigration increased substantially despite the restrictions on the German labor market, and that...

The eastern enlargements of the EU in 2004 and 2007 have stimulated the mobility of workers from the new EU8 and EU2 countries. A significant proportion of these migrants stayed abroad only temporarily, and the Great recession may have triggered return intentions. However, a return may be...

Numerous empirical studies find a substantial extent of discrimination in hiring decisions. Anonymous job applications have gained attention and popularity to identify and combat this form of discrimination. To test whether their intended effects result in practice, in several European countries...

The paper presents the Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (ULMS), which is one of the most widely used household and labor force surveys in Eastern Europe. It is based on a statistically representative sample of the Ukrainian population aged between 15 and 72 years, comprising about 4,000...

Debt-to-GDP ratios have grown to unprecedented levels in many industrialized economies. This requires disciplined consolidation efforts which are, however, supposed to come now at the wrong time with the economic recovery being fragile. Against this background, we call for a global debt brake...

This paper focuses on the determinants of self-employment among rural to urban migrants in China. Two self-selection mechanisms are analysed: the first relates to the manner in which migrants choose self-employment or paid work based on the potential gains from either type of employment; the...

As their environment changes, migrants constitute an interesting group to study the effect of relative income on subjective well-being. This paper focuses on the huge population of rural-to-urban migrants in China. Using a novel dataset, we find that the well-being of migrants depends on several...

The standard approach of analyzing gaps in social and labor market outcomes of different ethnic groups relies on analysis of statistical data about the affected groups. In this paper we go beyond this approach by measuring the views of expert stakeholders involved in minority integration. This...

A Single European Labor Market, particularly involving the free movement of workers within Europe, has been a goal of the European community since the 1950s. Whereas it may entail opportunities and drawbacks alike, the benefits – such as greater economic welfare for most citizens – are...

This reference paper describes the sampling and contents of the IZA Evaluation Dataset Survey and outlines its vast potential for research in labor economics. The data have been part of a unique IZA project to connect administrative data from the German Federal Employment Agency with innovative...