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Education and Geographical Mobility: The Role of the Job Surplus

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  • Michael Amior

Abstract

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.

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  • Michael Amior, 2024. "Education and Geographical Mobility: The Role of the Job Surplus," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 341-381, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:16:y:2024:i:4:p:341-81
    DOI: 10.1257/pol.20230279
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    Cited by:

    1. Bassier, Ihsaan & Manning, Alan & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2023. "Vacancy duration and wages," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121287, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Benoit Schmutz & Modibo Sidibé & Elie Vidal-Naquet, 2021. "Why Are Low-Skilled Workers Less Mobile? The Role of Mobility Costs and Spatial Frictions," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 142, pages 283-304.
    3. Monica Langella & Alan Manning, 2019. "Diversity and Neighbourhood Satisfaction," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(624), pages 3219-3255.
    4. Amior, Michael, 2018. "The contribution of foreign migration to local labor market adjustment," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 91705, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Simon, Andrew & Wilson, Matthew, 2021. "Optimal minimum wage setting in a federal system," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    6. Joseph-Simon Görlach, 2023. "Borrowing Constraints and the Dynamics of Return and Repeat Migration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 205-243.
    7. Ihsaan Bassier & Alan Manning & Barbara Petrongolo, 2023. "Vacancy duration and wages," CEP Discussion Papers dp1943, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    8. Ning Jia & Raven Molloy & Christopher Smith & Abigail Wozniak, 2023. "The Economics of Internal Migration: Advances and Policy Questions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 144-180, March.
    9. Bassier, Ihsaan & Manning, Alan & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2023. "Vacancy Duration and Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 16371, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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