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Mirjam Bächli
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Last Name
Bächli
First name
Mirjam
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mirjam.baechli@student.unisg.ch
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PublicationEssays in Labor EconomicsThis dissertation investigates the effect of immigration on natives' labor market outcomes, educational decisions, and attitudes towards immigration. Chapter 1 studies the role of immigrants in higher education. How do international students affect the intranational location choices of native graduates in their early careers? Using administrative Swiss data, I exploit idiosyncratic variation in the student composition across time within a study field and university. I find that a higher exposure to international students induces natives who grew up in rural places to work more often in large urban areas. I show that this response is likely due to changes in preferences rather than labor market conditions, despite relatively high stay rates of international students. There is no evidence of an effect on native graduates' residential choice. Chapter 2 investigates the effect of a free movement reform in Switzerland on natives' incentives to accumulate human capital at the tertiary level of education. The policy change affected local exposure to cross-border commuters differentially across regions. Our results show a rise in enrollment at universities that focus on applied studies in affected relative to non-affected regions in the post-reform period. The increase is driven by natives who have a vocational training that gives them experience and knowledge of labor market conditions. Enrollment rises in non-STEM subjects. We link study fields with foreign labor market competition in related occupations and find that native graduates in STEM occupations face stronger competition than native graduates in non-STEM occupations. This suggests that the response of natives is to build skills less transferable across countries. We estimate reform effects on native wages by education and occupation and conclude that results are consistent with rising labor market returns driving demand for education. Chapter 3 examines the role of labor protection in shaping native preferences over migration policies. Our results show that a higher immigrant exposure reduces pro-immigration vote shares in municipalities with a relatively low-skilled native population. The negative response is mitigated under higher levels of labor protection as measured by collective bargaining coverage. We find some suggestive evidence that collective agreements mitigate negative wage responses among low-skilled natives. The analysis suggests that labor protection affects vote outcomes by improving in addition other labor market conditions or by alleviating existing fears among the native population.Type: doctoral thesis