Education and Geographical Mobility: The Role of the Job Surplus

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Amior, Michael
• 署名单位: Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20230279
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 341-381
• 关键词: labor-market; internal migration; Search models; college; COMPETITION; INEQUALITY; workers; return; FIRMS

摘要

Better educated workers accept many more long-distance job offers, and relocate quicker following local shocks. I attribute this to a fundamental feature of their labor market experience, unrelated to geography: large returns to job match quality. If a good offer happens to originate from far away, the match surplus is then more likely to justify the cost of moving. This lubricates labor markets spatially. Using wage transition data (and a jobs ladder model), I show this can explain the bulk of mobility differentials. These differentials can be closed by subsidizing long-distance matches, and I quantify the cost of doing so.