State Regulation and Administrative Planning in the Integration Society

The BAMF business statistics, the Central Register of Foreigners (AZR), the Microcensus, and dedicated SOEP surveys collect data on individuals immigrating to Germany. These data serve as the basis for describing and analyzing aspects such as labor market participation, poverty risk, integration outcomes, and the demographic composition of migrants. However, significantly less documented and researched—despite being recurrent topics in public debate (e.g., prepaid cards, language courses, or accommodation and distribution procedures)—is the interaction of various state institutions with migrants and refugees, their transnational ties and obligations, as well as the outcomes of state measures for the integration trajectories of specific subpopulations.

The various modules of this project focus on different state institutions across all federal levels, aiming to document state regulation and the actions of these institutions, analyze measures and their implementation, and provide recommendations for new initiatives and potential legislative reforms.

For the United States and Switzerland there is evidence that the labour market integration of refugees can be improved considerably if allocation decisions jointly consider individual characteristics and regional conditions. These findings transfer to Germany only to a limited extent. What is known here is that integration prospects differ strongly across municipalities – what a better allocation would look like remains open.

On transnational care there is extensive, largely qualitative research. What is missing is work that identifies the policies and administrative practices for handling these cross-border living arrangements and tests their effects.

On measuring discrimination by executive and judicial bodies there is an international methodological debate. For Germany it has not yet been systematically examined which administrative data are suitable and which assumptions must hold.

The project aims to document state regulation and administrative action, analyse their effects and provide impulses for reform. Specifically, it seeks to put forward an empirically grounded proposal for an improved allocation procedure, to make visible where German rules impede cross-border care, and to clarify whether institutional discrimination can be measured reliably at all with existing administrative data.

Module 1 analyses administrative data from the Federal Employment Agency as well as the IAB's Integrated Employment Biographies and Migration Status History. Regression techniques are used to establish for whom labour market integration succeeds better where; an improved allocation procedure is developed from this.

Module 2 combines the analysis of legislation and case law with expert interviews in state and non-state support structures – on health insurance, pension entitlements and caring for relatives abroad, among others.

Module 3 first documents the sequence of institutional decisions from which police crime, judicial and prosecution statistics arise, and then examines at which points so-called outcome tests can be applied.

People applying for asylum in Germany cannot initially choose where they live. The Königstein Key determines how many asylum seekers each federal state takes in; within the states, separate keys apply. These procedures follow tax revenue, population size and capacity – not the question of where a particular person would have the best chances of work and participation.

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• Hainmueller, J.; Marbach, M.; Hangartner, D.; Harder, N.; Vallizadeh, E. (2026): Refugee labor market integration at scale: Evidence from Germany's fast-track employment program. PNAS 123 (14), 1–12.
• Bansak, K. et al. (2018): Improving refugee integration through data-driven algorithmic assignment. Science 359, 325–329.
• Knox, D.; Lowe, W.; Mummolo, J. (2020): Administrative Records Mask Racially Biased Policing. American Political Science Review 114 (3), 619–637.