Sulin Sardoschau (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Sulin Sardoschau (Humboldt University Berlin), "Scared Straight? Threat and Assimilation of Refugees in Germany" (w/ Philipp Jaschke and Marco Tabellini)

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of local threat on cultural and economic assimilation of refugees, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in their allocation across German regions between 2013 and 2016. We combine novel survey data on cultural preferences and economic outcomes of refugees with corresponding information on German respondents, and construct a threat index that integrates contemporaneous and historical variables. On average, refugees assimilate both culturally and economically. However, while refugees assigned to more hostile regions converge to German culture more quickly, they do not exhibit faster economic assimilation. Our evidence suggests that refugees exert more assimilation effort in response to local threat, but that higher discrimination prevents them from integrating more quickly in more hostile regions.

Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.

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See the seminar's full schedule at the Alesina Seminar page.

All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.