ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin
@rfberlin.bsky.social
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We conduct independent research into significant challenges to the economy, society and the welfare state in a global world. Find more information on rfberlin.com.
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rfberlin.bsky.social
🆕 RFBerlin Discussion Paper: Arthur Campbell, C. Matthew Leister, Philip Ushchev and @yveszenou.bsky.social develop a model of content-filtering to study how network structure shapes the distribution of political content: www.rfberlin.com/network-pape...
rfberlin.bsky.social
🆕 RFBerlin Discussion Paper: @stepanmikula.bsky.social and Mariola Pytliková study how improvements in air quality affect migration behavior. www.rfberlin.com/network-pape...
rfberlin.bsky.social
10/ 📄 Find the full paper on our website and follow us to stay updated on our latest research.
Knowledge Spillovers, Competition, and Individual Careers
ROCKWOOL Foundation
www.rfberlin.com
rfberlin.bsky.social
9/ Exposure to high-quality peers during apprenticeships generates particularly pronounced effects.
The magnitudes are much smaller among college graduates in their first jobs.
rfberlin.bsky.social
8/ Controlling for ordinal rank → positive effects of peer quality in the first job on earnings and wages five years later.
Relative rank → positive effects on future earnings and wages, suggesting that a stronger relative position confers an advantage in internal competition.
rfberlin.bsky.social
7/ As an alternative strategy to identify knowledge spillovers, the authors use workers' relative rank in the peer group:
- Absolute peer quality → knowledge spillover.
- Relative rank → competition.
Results corroborate the findings from the primary strategy.
rfberlin.bsky.social
6/ Competition effects are stronger for men: spillovers also more pronounced.
Women mainly benefit when staying with the same employer, while men leverage peer learning across firms.
rfberlin.bsky.social
5/ A 1 SD ↑ in trained peer quality → +3.7% earnings five years later.
✅ Gains persist for a decade.
✅ Hold even for workers who change firms → skills are transferable.
Negative effects from untrained peers are strongest in complex occupations and among peers early in their careers.
rfberlin.bsky.social
4/ Without distinguishing peer types, peer quality seems to have no effect. But once the authors separate trained and untrained peers:
- High-quality trained coworkers → long-lasting career gains (knowledge spillovers).
- High-quality untrained coworkers → career losses (competition).
rfberlin.bsky.social
3/ Using rich German administrative data, they compare entrants who start in the same firm and occupation but in different years, facing different peer groups. This allows them to estimate how the quality of peers in the first job affects long-term earnings and careers.
rfberlin.bsky.social
2/ The authors exploit a unique feature of the German labor market: some young entrants join firms as untrained workers, while others have completed firm-based apprenticeships. These groups work side-by-side, but don’t compete for the same promotions.
rfberlin.bsky.social
1/ Coworkers can shape the career of young labor market entrants by sharing knowledge and skills. But high-quality peers may also be competitors for promotions, bonuses, or retention. This paper disentangles knowledge spillovers from competition effects in peer groups.
rfberlin.bsky.social
🆕 RFBerlin Discussion Paper: Thomas Cornelissen, Christian Dustmann and Uta Schönberg study how exposure to high-quality peers in one's first job affects career outcomes for young workers, focusing on knowledge spillovers and competition effects. 🧵
rfberlin.bsky.social
Join us on 4 November for the RFBerlin Annual Public Lecture: “Why Women Won” by Nobel Laureate Claudia Goldin.
🎟️ Register now: form.typeform.com/to/j3BaW2OV

Discover how women’s roles in work and society have evolved and what challenges remain
More about the event: www.rfberlin.com/event/why-wo...
Why Women Won by Claudia Goldin
Following the success of our first public lecture, we are pleased to announce the next RFBerlin Annual Public Lecture, organized in collaboration with the Humboldt University of Berlin! This year, RFB...
www.rfberlin.com
rfberlin.bsky.social
🕊️ Europe’s asylum system faces a heavy pressure.
By 2024, number of pending cases topped 1.16 million, as inflows again outpaced processing capacity - a pattern first seen after the 2015 Syrian crisis.
rfberlin.bsky.social
Refugee shares vary across countries:
🇨🇾 Cyprus – 4.7%
🇨🇿 Czechia – 3.6%
🇩🇪 Germany – 3.3% (hosting ~2.75 million refugees)
rfberlin.bsky.social
📜 Under the EU Temporary Protection Directive, over 4.27 million Ukrainians were admitted in 2022, followed by 1.04 million in 2023 and 0.79 million in 2024.

Arrivals from #Afghanistan, #Venezuela, #Colombia, #Bangladesh, and #Turkey also contributed to this growth.
rfberlin.bsky.social
📈 Refugee numbers in the EU have grown sharply over the past decade; from about 1 million in 2014 to 7.8 millions in 2024.
The largest waves came from #Syria and #Ukraine.
rfberlin.bsky.social
Our researchers at CReAM at RFBerlin have published a new report on refugee inflows and trends in the European Union. Highlights in one thread!

Full report: www.rfberlin.com/wp-content/u...
rfberlin.bsky.social
🆕 CReAM at RFBerlin Report: @tomfratti.bsky.social and Giuseppe Pulito analyze recent trends in refugee inflows to the European Union.
🔗 www.rfberlin.com/wp-content/u...
rfberlin.bsky.social
🆕 RFBerlin Discussion Paper: Chris Riddell and Craig Riddell re-assess the impact of North American income maintenance experiments on two-parent families, incorporating data on happiness, marital satisfaction and household production to the analysis. www.rfberlin.com/network-pape...
rfberlin.bsky.social
🚨 Just one month left!
Don’t forget to submit your papers to the RFBerlin Migration Forum 📝
📅 Submission deadline: 2 Nov 2025
📍 Berlin | 26-27 Mar 2026
More details 👉 www.rfberlin.com/event/migrat...
#CallForPapers #MigrationForum2026
rfberlin.bsky.social
📄📄📄Call for Papers is open!
RFBerlin invites submissions for the next Migration Forum "Migration: Drivers, Consequences, and Governance". Submit your work now and share this call with colleagues.
Submit now: app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/79526...
#Migration #Governance #callforpapers