The September 2021 volume of the journal European Economic Review includes two publications by alumni of the BSE Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Markets Program:
Does immigration grow the pie? Asymmetric evidence from Germany
by Nicolò Maffei-Faccioli ’15 (with Eugenia Vella)
We provide empirical evidence suggesting that net migration shocks can have substantial demand effects, potentially acting like positive Keynesian supply shocks. Using monthly administrative data (2006–2019) for Germany in a structural VAR, we show that the shocks stimulate vacancies, wages, house prices, consumption, investment, net exports, and output. Unemployment falls for natives (dominant job-creation effect), driving a decline in total unemployment, while rising for foreigners (dominant job-competition effect). The geographic origin of migrants and the education level of residents matter crucially for the transmission. Overall, the evidence implies that the policy debate should focus on redistributive strategies between natives and foreigners.
(Featured on this blog as a working paper last year)
Twin Peaks: Covid-19 and the labor market
by Alessandro Ruggieri ’12 (with Jake Bradley and Adam Hal Spencer)
This paper develops a choice-theoretic equilibrium model of the labor market in the presence of a pandemic. It includes heterogeneity in productivity, age and the ability to work from home. Worker and firm behavior changes in the presence of the virus, which itself has equilibrium consequences for the infection rate. The model is calibrated to the UK and counterfactual lockdown measures are evaluated. We find a different response in both the evolution of the virus and the labor market with different lockdown policies. A laissez-faire approach results in lives lost and acts as negative shock to the economy. A lockdown policy, absent any other intervention, will reduce the lives lost but increase the economic burden. Consistent with recent evidence, we find that the economic costs from lockdown are most felt by those earning the least. Finally, we introduce a job retention scheme as implemented by the UK Government and find that it spreads the economic hardship more equitably.
Connect with BSE authors
Nicolò and Alessandro are both alumni of the Barcelona School of Economics Master’s Program in Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Markets. They both got their PhDs from the IDEA Program (UAB and BSE).
Nicolò Maffei-Faccioli ’15 is a Senior Economist at Norges Bank.
Alessandro Ruggieri ’12 is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham.