Migrants and multinationals Essays on the local effects of globalization

Globalization has accelerated in recent decades, reshaping labor markets and firm connections worldwide. Key symptoms include international migration and multinational firms, both of which create opportunities and challenges for local economies
In three main chapters, this thesis uses both empirical and theoretical methods to investigate how immigration and multinational firm activity affects the labor market and on the housing market. The first chapters considers how income tax incentives attract (international) migrants with mid-level earnings. Exaining of reform of a income tax incentive in the Netherlands, which clarified rules for eligibility, it shows that such a financial incentive is successful in attracting migrants with mid-level earnings. The second chapter turns to firm dynamics, in particular how the presence and employment composition of multinational firms affects wages and employment in domestic firms in the same region. It shows that an expansion of multinational employment increases wage for domestic workers, but decreases employment in domestic firms, liekly through (wage) competition for workers between firms. The last chapter examines how the presence of migrants with different income levels affects house prices. It finds that in the short run, demand effects likely dominate and any inflow of migrants is associated with faste house price growth. However, this effect varies by (income) composition of migrants in the medium run.
The questions and findings of this dissertation contribute to the literature examining the consequences of globalization in local labor and housing markets.