Prof. Jan Stuhler, Ph.D.

“Immigration, Monopsony and the Distribution of Firm Pay”

In this recent working paper, Jan Stuhler, together with Michael Amior, argues that the arrival of migrants with low reservation wages can strengthen the monopsony power of firms. Firms can exploit “cheap” migrant labor by offering lower wages, though at the cost of forgoing potential native hires who demand higher wages. This monopsonistic trade-off can lead to large negative effects on native employment that exceed those in competitive models, and which are concentrated among low-paying firms. To validate these predictions, we study changes in wage premia and employment across the firm pay distribution, during a large immigration wave in Germany. These adverse effects are not inevitable and may be mitigated through policies that limit firms’ monopsony power over migrants.

Mr. Stuhler’s fields of interest are Labor and Public Economics, with a particular focus on the labor market effects of immigration and the transmission of socioeconomic advantages across generations. His recent research studies how latent inequalities are transmitted across multiple generations, how firms’ monopsony power shapes the labor market impact of immigration, and how different contact types in dual labor markets affect workers’ careers.
During his stay at CESifo, Mr. Stuhler will continue his research on municipal fiscal and tax setting, including projects on tax competition, the fiscal effects of immigration, and on the labor market effects of fiscal spending. He will also initiate work on new projects on the interaction between immigration and collective bargaining systems in Germany as well as other European countries.

Jan Stuhler is a Professor of Economics at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), and further affiliated with the Swedish Institute for Social Research in Stockholm and the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration in London. He is also a CESifo Research Network Fellow. Before joining UC3M, Jan Stuhler studied Economics at the University of Bonn, UC Berkeley, and University College London, where he completed his PhD in 2014.