Publications
Publications
- 2025
- HBS Working Paper Series
Threat and Assimilation: Evidence from Refugees in Germany
By: Philipp Jaschke, Sulin Sardoschau and Marco Tabellini
Abstract
This paper studies the effects of local threat on the cultural assimilation and economic integration of refugees, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in their allocation across German regions between 2013 and 2016. We use representative survey data and administrative records to measure cultural preferences as well as employment, earnings and job characteristics of refugees and German residents, and construct a threat index that integrates contemporaneous and historical variables on xenophobia at the local level. We document that refugees assigned to more hostile regions converge to Germans' stated preferences more rapidly, but do not find a job more quickly and experience slower earnings growth. We provide evidence that, by heightening threat perceptions, local hostility prompts refugees to adopt German culture more quickly. However, higher discrimination in these regions slows down refugees' successful integration.
Keywords
Citation
Jaschke, Philipp, Sulin Sardoschau, and Marco Tabellini. "Threat and Assimilation: Evidence from Refugees in Germany." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-043, December 2021. (Revised January 2025. Revise and resubmit at the Economic Journal. Also available from NBER, and featured on Le Monde.)