Access to language training and the local integration of refugees
利用丹麦语言培训中心的开设、关闭和逐步扩张，以及难民被准随机分配到不同距离地点的政策，研究发现通勤时间每减少1小时，难民参加语言课的时长增加46至71小时；额外100小时语言课使丹麦语流利度提高8-9%，人力资本积累提高11-13%，并显著降低难民迁往大城市和离开初始安置社区的比例。
This paper examines whether language classes raise refugees’ language proficiency and improve their socio-economic integration. Our identification strategy leverages the opening, closing, and gradual expansion of local language training centers in Denmark, as well as the quasi-random assignment of the refugees to locations with varying proximity to a language training center. First, we show that refugees’ distance from the assigned language training center is as good as random conditional on initial placement. Second, we show that a one-hour decrease in commuting time increases the total hours of class attended by 46 to 71 hours. Third, we use this novel identification strategy to show that 100 additional hours of language class increases fluency in the Danish language by 8–9 percent, post-language training human capital acquisition by 11–13 percent and improve the integration of the refugees in the communities where they were initially placed, as measured by the lower exit rates from those same communities and an almost 70 percent reduction in mobility to the largest, most immigrant-dense cities in Denmark.