Labour market integration of immigrants: estimating local authority effects

We propose a method for computing indicators of the relative success of local authorities at integrating new immigrants in the labour market, taking account of differences in characteristics of immigrants and local labour markets. The indicator for integration success is based on mean duration from date of residence permit to start of an employment spell. We apply this method to a Danish administrative dataset. Correcting for differences in immigrant characteristics and local labour market conditions has an important impact on the estimated ranking of local authorities. We investigate how robust the ranking is with respect to changes in the specification of criteria for integration success and controls.