Measuring Income Assimilation of Migrants to Germany

Abstract

We measure the income assimilation of migrants to Germany employing a new measure of assimilation that uses the whole income distribution rather than selected moments. To do this we implement a discrete-state Markov chain to model the dynamics of the cross-sectional income distribution of migrants and natives in Germany. Bayesian methods allow us to fully characterize the limiting cross-sectional income distribution for migrants and natives, enabling us to compare our measures of assimilation in the limiting case. We find no evidence in this sample of income assimilation for migrants to Germany.