Mismatch Unemployment and the Geography of Job Search

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Marinescu, Ioana; Rathelot, Roland
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Warwick; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20160312
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 42-70
• 关键词: labor-market; immigrant inflows; spatial mismatch; directed search; EMPLOYMENT; IMPACT; determinants; migration; models; TRADE

摘要

Could we significantly reduce US unemployment by helping job seekers move closer to jobs? Using data from the leading employment board CareerBuilder.com, we show that, indeed, workers dislike applying to distant jobs: job seekers are 35 percent less likely to apply to a job 10 miles (mi.) away from their zip code of residence. However, because job seekers are close enough to vacancies on average, this distaste for distance is fairly inconsequential: our search and matching model predicts that relocating job seekers to minimize unemployment would decrease unemployment by only 5.3 percent. Geographic mismatch is thus a minor driver of aggregate unemployment.