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🚨New paper: Does ad hoc language training improve the economic integration of refugees? Evidence from Germany’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis 🚨 w/ Ehsan Vallizadeh, @niklas-harder.bsky.social, Dominik Hangartner, Jens Hainmueller doi.org/10.1093/jrss...

1/ Over 1 million refugees arrived in Germany in 2015. When established language training programs ("Integrationskurse") reached capacity, the Federal Employment Agency swiftly launched a new ad hoc program ("Einstiegskurse zur Deutschförderung") to enroll more.

2/ We examine the effects of both programs on refugee employment.

3/ Using a regression discontinuity design, we compare refugees who arrived in Germany before and after the eligibility cutoff for the ad hoc program, observing refugee employment outcomes over nearly 2 years. We find that the ad hoc program had no impact on employment.

4/ But the pre-existing program did help refugees to secure jobs! Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we find that participants were 4.4 percentage points more likely to be employed after just 1 year of starting the course, rising to 12 p.p. after 18 months.

5/ The limited number of classroom hours (320 vs. 600 hours), a non-standardized curriculum, and a lack of certification might explain the differences between the two programs.

6/ For policymakers preparing for future refugee arrivals, this research highlights the need to balance urgency, capacity, & effectiveness in integration programming. Scaling existing, proven programs may be more effective than building large-scale initiatives from scratch.

Working paper: osf.io/preprints/so... Research brief: immigrationlab.org/project/prep...