Spatial mobility of workers
Table of Contents
A Dynamic Empirical Model of Frictional Spatial Job Search
joint with Guillaume Wilemme (Leicester).1
This paper develops a general equilibrium life-cycle model of spatial job search across heterogeneous local labour markets in the presence of search frictions. US and European labour markets exhibit very low geographic mobility. This pattern has usually been framed as resulting solely from moving costs. However, to account for the observed geographic mobility, the implied moving costs should be extremely high. Stating the problem with a search-theoretic perspective, we establish a tractable model of location choice that accounts for the spatial dimension of search frictions. The model allows disentangling the different frictions that contribute to lowering geographic mobility, with a particular emphasis on the role of age. We estimate our model structurally using French administrative individual-level job transition data. Our results suggest first that job search search frictions reduce internal migration much more than mobility costs. Second, mobility costs are more constraining for middle-aged workers than for young and senior workers.
Recent presentations
- 2019: DFG1764 on “Technology, Demographics, and the Labor Market” (Cologne, March), SaM (Oslo, April), SDLM (Marseille, July), CEPR-BdF (Paris, November).
Search Across Local Labour Markets
joint with Panos Nanos (Sheffield).1
Local labour markets exhibit substantial and persistent differences in terms of unemployment rates, nominal and net-of-housing-cost wages, as well as firm productivities. Yet the observed spatial mobility of workers searching for jobs, unemployed and on- the-job, is limited and the population response to localised labour demand shocks is very slow. In order to address this empirical puzzle, we propose a new dynamic structural and empirical model of workers’ job search across many local labour markets that integrates key concerns in urban and labour economics by focussing on spatial mobility and search frictions. Workers search for employment opportunities within and across local labour markets. This job search is directed and unrestricted as both unemployed and employed workers can search. The model is tractable as it does not rely on stationarity, unlike most random search models in the literature. In our empirical application, this model is estimated structurally using individual transition data obtained from an administrative employer-employee panel from Germany (LIAB). The model enables us to quantify the underlying drivers of and barriers (such as relocation costs, search frictions, and their amplifying interaction) to the spatial mobility of workers, and to investigate counterfactual scenarios such as place-based policy interventions proposed to promote spatial mobility.
Recent presentations
- 2019: SaM (Oslo, April), ESEM (Manchester, August)
