University College Dublin, Ireland, and IZA, Germany
IZA World of Labor role
Author, Topic spokesperson
Expertise
International migration, Education
Country
Germany
Languages
German - Native speaker, English - Non-native speaker
Media experience
Print, Digital, Television, Radio
elsner@iza.org
Phone
49 2283894522
Current position
Assistant Professor of Economics, University College Dublin, Ireland; Deputy Program Director Migration, IZA, Germany
Website
Qualifications
PhD Economics, Trinity College Dublin, 2012
Selected publications
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“Emigration and wages: The EU enlargement experiment.” Journal of International Economics 91:1 (2014): 154−163.
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“10 years after: EU enlargement, closed borders, and migration to Germany.” In: Kahanec, M., and K. F. Zimmermann (eds). Migration and the Great Recession: Adjustments in the Labour Market of an Enlarged European Community. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2014 (with K. F. Zimmermann).
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“Does emigration benefit the stayers? Evidence from EU enlargement.” Journal of Population Economics 26:2 (2013): 531−553.
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Does emigration increase the wages of non-emigrants in sending countries Updated
Emigration can increase the wages of non-emigrants, but may eventually lead to lower productivity and wage losses
Benjamin Elsner, March 2022How migration affects labor markets in receiving countries is well understood, but less is known about how migration affects labor markets in sending countries, particularly the wages of workers who do not emigrate. Most studies find that emigration increases wages in the sending country but only for non-emigrants with substitutable skills similar to those of emigrants; non-emigrants with different (complementary) skills lose. These wage reactions are short-term effects, however. If a country loses many highly educated workers, the economy can become less productive altogether, leading to lower wages for everyone in the long term.MoreLess