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This article examines the network behavior of ethnic Germans while comparing differences in the attachments to relatives and friends across sending regions. This paper also examines whether migration networks are used by migrants when they reach West Germany. Furthermore, the determinants of integration of migrants in an existing network during the first years after immigration are analyzed. According to the human capital theory of migration, the probability of migration should decrease with age and increase with education, reflecting the smaller expected lifetime gain from moving for older people and the higher ability to collect and process information about the destination country by better educated individuals. The analysis demonstrates that the network behavior of ethnic Germans can be explained by observable characteristics. Two crucial variables were investigated, namely the connections to friends from the same country of origin that are East Germans. These connections strongly decline with duration of residence and presence in rural areas. Older people more likely to settle close to friends or relatives at the time of immigration. Population density increases, education, length of stay in a reception camp and per capita government expenditures decreases the likelihood of such settlement.

Abstract--A positive wage-firm size relationship is well documented in the empirical literature in industrial organization and labor economics. Firm size seems to proxy various unobserved determinants such as job satisfaction, monitoring costs, more complex technologies and worker participation in monopoly profits. It is generally argued that, the greater the possibility of controlling for these latent factors, the less likely that a significant size effect will appear. This paper attempts to distinguish firm size from other wage determinants for a rich data source for West Germany and demonstrates the persistence of the size premium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]