Skilled Labour Inflows and Economic Growth: Theory and Evidence from Post-War Germany
Abstract: This study uses a novel county-level database on German World War II (WWII) expellees to analyze the effects of skilled migration on regional development. We find a statistically significant and positive effect of high-skilled expellees on income growth in West Germany. To allow for a causal interpretation, we exploit the exogenous character of the flight and expulsion process and use an instrumental variable strategy based on predicted migration flows. These results may partly explain the rapid development of southern German regions after WWII, as these regions experienced a disproportionate influx of highly skilled expellees.
Richard Franke is a Research Fellow at CEPH, Trinity College Dublin. Before joining Trinity, he was a researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the University of Bayreuth. He is interested in the causes and consequences of regional disparities and conducts research at the intersection of regional economics, economic history, labour economics and demographic economics. His work has been published in the Journal of Economic History and the Economic History Review.
and 
by