# Ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union to Germany after 1987

Ethnic Germans arriving in Germany with the lifting of emigration restrictions in central and eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) after 1987 did not face legal barriers on the labor market, as they were granted German citizenship upon arrival. Glitz (2012) exploits an exogeneous placement policy by the government which did not take labor market needs or skill composition into account. Looking at annual effects in the period between 1996 and 2001, the author finds a positive and significant short-run displacement effect but no conclusive effect on relative wages between OLS and IV results. The lack of short-term wage effects in the IV results might be explained by Germany’s strong union coverage at the time.

# Repatriates and escapees from Algeria to France

In the aftermath of Algerian independence in 1962, up to 900,000 people fled to France including 750,000 French nationals living in Algeria, about 100,000 naturalized Jews and several thousand pro-French Algerians who fought against the independentists. The French and Algerian caseloads were different in size but also in education level with the Algerians having the quasi totality of adults with less than primary education and the French having only about a quarter with this level of education. Both groups mostly settled in the Southern municipalities of France along the Mediterrean coast. A number of measures facilitated the integration of French repatriates into the labor market, including special benefits for up to a year to support the job search, a lump sum towards housing, and priority for certain jobs. Nevertheless, they had higher unemployment rates than natives in 1968 (Hunt 1992).

Using the 1962 and 1968 French censuses, Hunt (1992) studied this case focusing on French nationals and found a positive and significant small effect on the average locals’ unemployment rate and a negative and weakly significant effect on salaries at the national level, but does not differentiate between skill groups. Borjas and Monras included this caseload in their 2017 study distinguishing between French repatriates and Algerian emigrants. They find that the Algerian low skilled emigrants had a positive and significant effect on the unemployment rate and a negative and significant effect on the employment rate of male locals whereas the repatriation of French nationals had no effect on either employment or unemployment in the OLS regressions but a weak statistically significant positive effect on unemploymenet in their IV estimates. They also find that, for unemployment, these results are mainly driven by low skilled workers (less than primary education) whereas the impact on the employment rate affects all skills groups. They do not find any beneficial complementarities of skilled French natives with the low-skilled Algerians.

These two studies overlap only in relation to French repatriates and only unemployment and the results can be considered similar, even if the effect estimated is conceptually slightly different, as Clemens and Hunt (2017) note. Clemens and Hunt (2017) confirm the results of Borjas and Monras for Algerian nationals. We are not aware of any paper that contributes to the interpretation of these results. One of the reasons for the weak impact might have been the economic boom in France during the time of the influx and strong labor demand, as reflected by other important labor immigration trends happening around the same time. Hunt (1992), for example, shows that even if internal migration to areas with many repatriates might have decreased, this was offset by increased international migration to these same areas.

# Cuban refugees in Miami

From May 1980 to June 1981 an estimated 120,000-126,000 Cubans arrived in Miami on boats as Castro suddenly allowed Cubans to leave the country from the Port of Mariel on April 20, 1980. Approximately half of this population settled in Miami contributing to increase the labor force by about 7 percent (Card, 1990). Based on the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966 and The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1976, Cubans were given refugee status, they were allowed to work and could also be granted permanent residency after one year. The high number of previous Cuban and other Hispanic immigrants meant that local networks were available to help with job seeking and that language was not an obstacle to work.

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