The economic impact of EU-enlargement: assessing the migration potential

Abstract.

This paper analyzes the determinants of immigration flows to Germany in a time series-cross section framework. The reduced form of a well established theoretical model is estimated for a sample of 17 sending countries and a period covering 1960 to 1994. The estimates are then used to perform out-of-sample forecasts to assess the immigration potential from the Eastern European accession candidates to Germany. These scenarios predict a moderate increase in immigration to Germany, especially for the first round accession candidates.