Agent-based modeling

Das übergeordnete Ziel von MigSoKo ist es, die Mechanismen zu untersuchen, die den sich gegenseitig beeinflussenden Phänomenen Migration und Umweltwandel zugrunde liegen. Dazu sollen räumliche Muster von Migration und Umweltveränderungen identifiziert und begründet werden. Ebenso soll der kausale Zusammenhang von Umweltwandel, Bevölkerungsdruck und Migration sowie den ökologischen Konsequenzen von Migration erklärt werden. Hierzu werden im Projekt Daten und Methoden verschiedener Disziplinen auf verschiedenen räumlichen Ebenen (lokal, national, regional, global) systematisch miteinander kombiniert. So werden Zensus- und Fernerkundungsdaten mit Befragungen von Migranten, einer computergestützten Modellierung und partizipativen Szenarien verknüpft, um Mechanismen der umweltbedingten Abwanderung sowie ökologische Konsequenzen von Wanderungsbewegungen in Äthiopien zu identifizieren und zu erklären. Darauf basierend wird schließlich ein Instrument für politische Entscheidungsträger entwickelt, das eine systematische Integration von Migration und nachhaltiger Ressourcennutzung in Klimaanpassungspolitiken und -programmen ermöglicht. Damit zu erzielende Effekte sind beispielsweise eine verbesserte Existenzgrundlage der Haushalte vor Ort, eine regionale Verbesserung der Umweltbedingungen sowie überregionale Synergieeffekte.

Das Projekt hat das Ziel, die Mechanismen der Entstehung und des Wandels sozialer Netzwerke und ethnischer Identifikationen von Jugendlichen zu untersuchen. Dazu wurden in einem ersten Schritt auf Basis bestehender Konzepte angemessene Messinstrumente für ethnische Identifikationen von Kindern und Jugendlichen entwickelt und getestet. Im zweiten Schritt werden diese Messinstrumente im Rahmen von Primärdatenerhebungen eingesetzt, in denen etwa 2000 SchülerInnen der 5., 6. und 7. Jahrgangstufe an Schulen in Nordrhein-Westfalen wiederholt befragt werden. Dabei gibt es zwei Besonderheiten. Erstens werden an jeder Schule alle SchülerInnen der drei Jahrgangsstufen befragt. Insbesondere werden die Netzwerke der SchülerInnen auf Jahrgangsebene erfragt, um so Informationen über Freundschaften zwischen SchülerInnen zu erhalten. Zweitens werden die SchülerInnen zu drei Zeitpunkten befragt. Die erste Erhebung findet im April/Mai 2013 statt, die zweite voraussichtlich im November 2013 und die dritte im April/Mai 2014. Die dadurch entstehenden Paneldaten sind geeignet, die kausalen Wechselwirkungen zwischen sozialen Netzwerken und ethnischen Identifikationen zu untersuchen. Für die Analyse der Daten sollen insbesondere kürzlich entwickelte, bislang aber in der Migrationsforschung selten eingesetzte stochastische, akteursbasierte Modelle für Netzwerkevolutionsprozesse verwendet werden.

This paper explores the impact of living in the Palestinian camps on the socio-economic situation and on the construction of political and national identities. It first presents an overview of the living conditions of Palestinian refugees with a comparison between the lives of the camp dwellers and those of other refugees. Then it argues that there are major differences between closed and open refugee camps, and that the camp setting as a closed space is not a 'natural' setting for refugees, but that it is a matter of disciplinary power. It also demonstrates that in Palestinian camps, the relationship between national identity and residential setting is weak and that the camps end up modelling a new, urban identity as opposed to a new national identity.

This issue of Network Industries Quarterly will look at different issues of rail regulation with examples from in and outside the European Union. The rail sector in Europe like other network industries is in a process of organizational restructuring that is part of different forms of liberalisation as well as de- and re-regulation. In this process many approaches to railway regulation are reassessed. Achieving more, better and more cost efficient rail services for freight and passengers is a commonly shared goal, but there are different opinions on the right policies to achieve this goal. This issue of the Network Industries Quarterly will look at different aspects of rail regulation with examples from in and outside the European Union. On the example of the Swiss rail reform Desmaris looks at the relationship between competition and performance. Kuligowska describes the recent reforms that the Polish rail regulator had to undertake when dealing with open access provision. Laroche discusses the issue of congestion of railway lines and how saturation of rail infrastructure can be modelled. Thiebaud & Amaral look at how prices influence coordination in the rail sector. Peña-Alcaraz et al. present an alternative view on capacity pricing in open access rail systems on the case of Tanzania.

Luxembourg is characterized by a very specific demographic situation with 47,9% of its resident population being non-Luxembourgish nationals as of 1 January 2018. This particular circumstance makes Luxembourg the EU Member State with the highest share of non-citizens residing on its territory. At the same time, around 85% of the foreign population are citizens of another EU Member State, leading to the fact that third-country nationals constitute only 7,3% of the total resident population of Luxembourg, the lowest share of foreigners coming from a third-country in the European Union. Integration is defined in national legislation as a ‘two-way process by which the foreigners shows their will to participate on a long-term basis to the host society, which, in turn, takes all the necessary measures at the social, economic, political, and cultural levels, to encourage and facilitate this approach. Integration is a task that the State, municipalities and civil society achieve together’. In addition to this legal provision, several strategic documents, most notably the multi-annual national action plan on integration 2018, or PAN integration, published in July 2018, make reference to integration and its definition. The PAN integration provides the framework for the programs and tools favouring the social cohesion of Luxembourgish and non-Luxembourgish nationals and the overall national integration policy by identifying five priority domains, one of which explicitly relates to the reinforcement of employability of non-Luxembourgish nationals. Generally speaking, employment is viewed as a core element of the overall integration process, making both the access to as well as the integration into the Luxembourgish labour market a key element in becoming a part of society. At the same time, this access to and integration into the labour market pose a challenge, particularly to third-country nationals, as the statistics show that their employment rate is lower than that of Luxembourgish nationals or citizens of another EU Member State. Third-country nationals are predominantly occupied in the accommodation and food service activities sector, followed by the administrative and support service activities sector and the wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles sector. A closer look at the evolution of the sectors employing third-country nationals over the last years, however, indicates that in particular the information and communication technologies sector, the professional, scientific and technical activities sector and the financial and insurance activities sector register the most significant growth rates, leading to a development that seem to indicate a ‘double immigration’ of (highly) skilled migrants on the one hand and less or low skilled migrants in the more traditional economic sectors on the other hand. In regard to the general integration approach as well as the labour market integration policy, this study shows that Luxembourg does have not have a specific policy/strategic document/model in place that only focusses on third-country nationals. All political documents (laws and strategic documents such as the PAN 2010-2014 and the new PAN integration of 2018) and public measures (Welcome and Integration Contract (CAI), linguistic leave, support measures provided by the National Employment Agency (ADEM), measures facilitating school integration, electoral registration campaigns, etc.) are aimed at all foreign nationals without distinguishing between EU nationals and third-country nationals. It is the Immigration Law that provides the legal framework regarding the various grounds of migration for economic purposes. Additionally, the legislator aims to be attractive for certain categories of migrants coming to Luxembourg for economic purposes in order to meet the needs of the country’s economic development (via legislative measures such as the European Blue Card, the ‘investor’ residence permit or the agreement between Luxembourg and Cape Verde). This being said, this study will present examples of practices that have been identified as good practices in the context of the topic of labour market integration of third-country nationals, despite the fact that they, for the most part, do not fit 100% into the pre-set structure of the study template at hand. In section 2.2, three Member State measure are presented, the first of which is the linguistic leave, a specific form of additional special leave that is accessible for salaried and independent workers of all nationalities, resident or non-resident, to learn or perfect the command of the Luxembourgish language. This legislative measure was introduced by law in 2009 with the intention to facilitate the integration of the beneficiaries into society through the labour market. The second measure is the AMIF-project ‘InSitu JOBS’ by the non-governmental organisation CLAE asbl (with co-financing from the Luxembourgish State). This project, which ended in April 2018 was targeted at third-country nationals within the scope of this study as well as at beneficiaries of international protection by providing them information and counselling in the context of access and integration into the Luxembourgish labour market. The third measure was also an AMIF-project and consists of a practical guide that was developed and drafted by IMS Luxembourg, a network of Luxembourgish companies, in order to provide information on how to hire and integrate third-country nationals. As for the private sector measures in section 2.3. of this study, research of secondary resources as well as consultations with various relevant stakeholders proved to be rather difficult in terms of finding private sector initiatives that specifically target at supporting or facilitating the labour market integration of third-country nationals within the scope of this study. Two measures were selected in this context, the first consisting of a specific recruitment method (simulation-based recruitment method) by a large international company which allows them to evaluate various different profiles of people that are not necessarily detectable through the classic CV-based recruitment methods. The second measure is a business guide developed by the American Chamber of Commerce Luxembourg and aims to promote and facilitate the establishment of new business in Luxembourg by providing information on everything that entrepreneurs and international companies need to know in this context.

Indian migrants have become one of the leading groups of retail entrepreneurs in Spain in payment services. We have found that 310 Indian entrepreneurs are agents of payment institutions in Spain, and that they have a strong preference for Spain's Mediterranean regions: 256, or 82% of them are based there. Half of the 310 Indian agents have traditional Sikh names, suggesting that they have a Sikh background and that they or their families come from Punjab. Twenty percent of all the agents are Indian women. The personal nature of the agency contracts means not only a business for those women, but also status. Being an 'agent' has been found to be empowering, allowing these women spaces of personal autonomy seldom enjoyed by the average immigrant. Half of the Indian agents surveyed can be considered serial entrepreneurs, as they own several businesses, including travel agencies, supermarkets and IT services. Some have even built highly sophisticated financial services ventures. Although the focus of the text is on immigrants from India, the text also addresses other origins. The text is divided into two parts. The first is a description of the context, activity and the general dataset. The second concentrates on Indian entrepreneurs with a survey that included in-depth interviews.

The objective of the present paper is to evaluate the potential development impact and any possible side effects of remittances in Belarus. Our main finding, based on VAR modeling, is that we cannot consider remittances as a driver of economic growth in Belarus: their positive influence on GDP growth is not statistically significant. In fact, in the next period GDP responds negatively to remittances growth (p-value is 0.005). To some extent this may be a result of a productivity decrease conditioned by possible brain-drain effects and high employee turnover. Remittances appear to be strongly pro-cyclical with respect to Russian GDP and mildly pro-cyclical with respect to the GDP of Belarus. Analysis shows that negative influence of remittances on GDP is not caused by Dutch disease and inflation: neither exchange rate appreciation nor growth in consumer price is induced by remittances. Instead, lagged REER devaluation Granger causes growth in remittances inflow (Wald test p-value is 0.051): when in a crisis devaluation takes place in Belarus more people go abroad to support their families and more transfers come from abroad.

Gegenstand des Forschungsvorhabens ist die Modellierung der zukünftigen Entwicklung beruflicher Platzierung von in Deutschland lebenden Migranten der dritten Generation in einem mittelfristigen Zeitraum von 30-40 Jahren. Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf der Verbindung dieser Entwicklung mit der demographisch und migrationsgeschichtlich bedingten Veränderung der ethnischen und sozialstrukturellen Bevölkerungszusammensetzung, welche zusätzlich zu kausalen Faktoren den Integrationsstand in der dritten Generation beeinflussen kann (Kompositionseffekte). Als empirische Basis für das Prognosemodell werden theoretisch geleitete Erkenntnisse aus Längsschnittanalysen generiert. Empirische Informationen liegen im ausreichenden Maße vor, um eine verlässliche Schätzung oben genannter Entwicklungen zu realisieren. Dies erfolgt mithilfe einer dynamischen Mikrosimulation, wobei ein aktueller Mikrozensusdatensatz als empirischer Ausgangsdatensatz fungiert.

"Theoretical background and objectives This project comprises two studies that use two different data sets to examine the influence of ethnic diversity on interethnic contacts and attitudes towards immigrants by drawing on insights from group threat and inter-group contact theory. The project advances over earlier research by a) opening the black box of the mediating mechanisms via which ethnic diversity – operationalised as the population share of immigrants – affects citizens' immigration policy preferences and interethnic contacts as well as b) testing competing propositions derived from contact and group threat theory at different individual and contextual levels of analysis. In the first study, we examine which role the size of the immigrant population plays in explaining immigrant derogation within and between European regions and consider the following question: does a larger size of immigrant population increase perceived group threat and thereby lead to greater immigrant derogation? Or does it increase intergroup contact and thereby ameliorate immigrant derogation? In the second study we derive competing hypotheses on the role the size of the immigrant population plays for explaining the anti-immigrant attitudes of Dutch citizens. Research design and methodology The first study uses regionalised European Social Survey 2002 and official data, which were analysed by means of multilevel structural equation modelling. The second study uses structural equation modelling with robust standard errors on nationally representative Dutch survey data enriched with official municipality-level statistics. Findings Both studies converge in demonstrating that ethnic diversity exerts dual effects in promoting interethnic contact, but also to produce prejudice. Perceived group threat is associated with immigrant derogation. However, intergroup contact reduces perceived group threat and thereby amends such derogation of immigrants. Between regions, our findings show that a larger size of the immigrant population increases both greater perceived group threat and intergroup contact. At the same time, the effects of perceived group threat and intergroup contact on immigrant derogation resemble those found within regions. In sum, these results lend evidence to the generalisability of both group threat and contact effects."

"Das Teilprojekt wird im Rahmen des BIM-Forschungs-Interventions-Cluster ""Solidarität im Wandel?"" durchgeführt, das durch die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Migration, Flüchtlinge und Integration gefördert wird. Das Projekt untersucht exemplarisch am Beispiel polnischstämmiger, in Deutschland lebender Frauen, wie sich Migrant*innen aus Osteuropa für Geflüchtete engagieren, was sie dazu motiviert und welche Werteeinstellungen diesem Engagement zugrunde liegen. Diese Fragen interessieren vor allem im Kontext der Solidarisierung in Europa und der kontrastierenden Positionen osteuropäischer EU-Mitgliedstaaten, die sich gegen die Aufnahme von Geflüchteten aussprechen. Diese Positionen gehen mit einer vergleichsweise hohen Fremdenfeindlichkeit und Nationalisierung der Bevölkerung in Osteuropa einher. Bisherige Forschungsergebnisse zeigen diesbezüglich, dass Migrantinnen aus Polen häufig in der Arbeit mit Geflüchteten in Deutschland engagiert sind, obwohl sie in Polen nie aktiv gewesen sind. Diese Einstellung „erlernen“ sie vielmehr nach der Migration. Durch den Vergleich der Ergebnisse dieser Studie mit Umfragen in Polen sollen die Auswirkungen der Migration auf ehrenamtliches Engagement nun bestimmt werden. Da die Migrant*innen soziale Netzwerke in das Herkunftsland pflegen, kann eine Änderung von Werten und Einstellungen auch auf Nicht-Migrant*innen wirken. Auch durch ihr Wahlverhalten in Deutschland und Polen können Migrant*innen die Prozesse der Solidarisierung in Europa beeinflussen."

The objective of the MISTY project is to use theory and rigorous empirical research to expand knowledge of transformations to sustainability by incorporating migration dynamics. These specifically include: the impact of aggregate flows of people on sustainability; the individual life course dimensions of sustainability; and the governance of migration and sustainability. There is unprecedented concern over involuntary migration globally affecting insecurity and human rights. But both domestic and international migration has enormous transformative potential for individuals and societies. Transformation theories assume static populations and fail to recognize both positive and negative impacts of the movement of people. This gap limits explanations and intervention strategies for sustainability. This research project will develop a comprehensive migration-sustainability model, and develop insights on sustainability strategies at local, national and international scales. It will build global capacity of social science to explain and engage with migration dimensions of transformations to sustainability. The interdisciplinary social-science led consortium from Europe, North America, Asia and Africa builds on on-going methodological innovation and deep collaboration. The research design involves modeling, observation and action research at global scale and in research sites representing the full range of so-called migration transitions. The outcome will be co-designed advances in theory and salient and workable sustainability strategies reflecting real world migration dynamics. This research integrates comprehensive insights on migration into theories of transformation to sustainability.

Millions of international migrants have recently sought refuge in Europe, animating debates about the best ways to manage migration. Even more people are being displaced within their home countries every year due to natural disasters like floods and storms; and underlying these sudden events is a steady flow of people leaving their rural livelihoods behind and flocking to the cities in an ongoing trend towards urbanization. Across spatial scales, humanity is on the move. And, that much is clear, climate change plays a role in this: whether in the form of unprecedented droughts that drive people to abandon their fields (as likely happened in Syria just before the war) or through differential impacts on countries’ economies that widen the income gaps and fuel international migration. But how large are the effects of climate change - and how do they interact across spatial scales? Little to no quantitative research is available, and the numbers that have been proposed (e.g. of “environmental refugees”) are often crude estimates, and are highly contested. IMPETUS aims for a unified, quantitative modeling approach to understand the linkages between migration, urbanization, and climate change. To this end, the project combines interdisciplinary expertise from climate change, migration, and urban development. The project will not only provide a better understanding of the relevant environmental and social processes, but also provide valuable data - including projections of future migration and urbanization under climate change - to science and policymakers. This may contribute to anticipating political and humanitarian crises and improving migration policies, as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, in a rapidly changing world.