IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jecgeo/v19y2019i6p1261-1286..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Local labor market size and qualification mismatch

Author

Listed:
  • Francesco Berlingieri

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of the size of the local labor market on skill mismatch. Using survey data for Germany, I find that workers in large cities are both less likely to be overqualified for their job and to work in a different field than the one for which they trained. Different empirical strategies are employed to account for the potential sorting of talented workers into more urbanized areas. Results on individuals who have never moved away from the place in which they grew up and fixed effects estimates obtaining identification through regional migrants suggest that sorting does not fully explain the existing differences in qualification mismatch across areas. This provides evidence of the existence of agglomeration economies through better matches. However, lower qualification mismatch in larger cities is found to explain at best a small part of the urban wage premium.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesco Berlingieri, 2019. "Local labor market size and qualification mismatch," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(6), pages 1261-1286.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jecgeo:v:19:y:2019:i:6:p:1261-1286.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeg/lby045
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4, June.
    2. Hartog, Joop, 2000. "Over-education and earnings: where are we, where should we go?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 131-147, April.
    3. Kampelmann, Stephan & Rycx, François, 2012. "The impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity: Evidence from linked panel data," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 918-931.
    4. Bleakley, Hoyt & Lin, Jeffrey, 2012. "Thick-market effects and churning in the labor market: Evidence from US cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 87-103.
    5. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Gobillon, Laurent, 2015. "The Empirics of Agglomeration Economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 247-348, Elsevier.
    6. Moretti, Enrico, 2004. "Estimating the social return to higher education: evidence from longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 175-212.
    7. Jorge De La Roca & Diego Puga, 2017. "Learning by Working in Big Cities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 106-142.
    8. Andini, Monica & de Blasio, Guido & Duranton, Gilles & Strange, William C., 2013. "Marshallian labour market pooling: Evidence from Italy," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 1008-1022.
    9. Signe Jauhiainen, 2011. "Overeducation in the Finnish regional labour markets," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 90(3), pages 573-588, August.
    10. Alessia Matano & Paolo Naticchioni, 2012. "Wage distribution and the spatial sorting of workers," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 379-408, March.
    11. Andersson, Fredrik & Burgess, Simon & Lane, Julia I., 2007. "Cities, matching and the productivity gains of agglomeration," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 112-128, January.
    12. Ciccone, Antonio & Hall, Robert E, 1996. "Productivity and the Density of Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 54-70, March.
    13. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Duranton, Gilles & Gobillon, Laurent, 2008. "Spatial wage disparities: Sorting matters!," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 723-742, March.
    14. Diego Puga, 2010. "The Magnitude And Causes Of Agglomeration Economies," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 203-219, February.
    15. Glaeser, Edward L & Mare, David C, 2001. "Cities and Skills," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 316-342, April.
    16. Florian Lehmer & Joachim Möller, 2010. "Interrelations between the urban wage premium and firm-size wage differentials: a microdata cohort analysis for Germany," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 45(1), pages 31-53, August.
    17. Abel, Jaison R. & Deitz, Richard, 2015. "Agglomeration and job matching among college graduates," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 14-24.
    18. D'Costa, Sabine & Overman, Henry G., 2014. "The urban wage growth premium: Sorting or learning?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 168-179.
    19. E. D. Gould, 2007. "Cities, Workers, and Wages: A Structural Analysis of the Urban Wage Premium," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 477-506.
    20. Overman, Henry & Bosquet, Clément, 2016. "Why does birthplace matter so much? Sorting, learning and geography," CEPR Discussion Papers 11085, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Leuven, Edwin & Oosterbeek, Hessel, 2011. "Overeducation and Mismatch in the Labor Market," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 283-326, Elsevier.
    22. Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), 2015. "Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 5, number 5.
    23. Daniel Heuermann & Benedikt Halfdanarson & Jens Suedekum, 2010. "Human Capital Externalities and the Urban Wage Premium: Two Literatures and their Interrelations," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 47(4), pages 749-767, April.
    24. Robst, John, 2007. "Education and job match: The relatedness of college major and work," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 397-407, August.
    25. Martin Kroh, 2011. "Documentation of Sample Sizes and Panel Attrition in the German Socio Economic Panel (SOEP) (1984 until 2010)," Data Documentation 59, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    26. Martin Kroh, 2012. "Documentation of Sample Sizes and Panel Attrition in the German Socio Economic Panel (SOEP) (1984 until 2011)," Data Documentation 66, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    27. Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3, June.
    28. Buchel, Felix & van Ham, Maarten, 2003. "Overeducation, regional labor markets, and spatial flexibility," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 482-493, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Koster, Hans R.A. & Ozgen, Ceren, 2021. "Cities and tasks," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    2. Ömer Şahin, 2021. "Regional Analysis of Skills-Mismatch in Turkish Labor Markets," Journal of Economic Policy Researches, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-27, January.
    3. Yoann Morin & Lionel Védrine, 2022. "Do agglomeration economies affect firms’ returns to training? Evidence based on French industrial firms," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(5), pages 1135-1156, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Berlingieri, Francesco, 2015. "Local labour market size and qualification mismatch," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113102, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Gobillon, Laurent, 2015. "The Empirics of Agglomeration Economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 247-348, Elsevier.
    3. Peters, Jan Cornelius, 2016. "Quantifying the effect of labor market size on learning externalities," Economics Working Papers 2016-11, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    4. Jordy Meekes & Wolter H. J. Hassink, 2023. "Endogenous local labour markets, regional aggregation and agglomeration economies," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(1), pages 13-25, January.
    5. Niebuhr, Annekatrin, 2016. "Benefits of dense labour markets - Evidence from transitions to employment in Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145715, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Koster, Hans R.A. & Ozgen, Ceren, 2021. "Cities and tasks," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    7. Stef Proost & Jacques-François Thisse, 2019. "What Can Be Learned from Spatial Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(3), pages 575-643, September.
    8. Galster, George C. & Osland, Liv, 2024. "Educational and gender heterogeneity of the rural-urban earnings premium: New evidence from Norway," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    9. KONDO Keisuke, 2017. "Urban Wage Premium Revisited: Evidence from Japanese matched employer-employee data," Discussion papers 17047, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    10. Paul Verstraten & Gerard Verweij & Peter Zwaneveld, 2018. "Why do wages grow faster in urban areas? Sorting of high potentials matters," CPB Discussion Paper 377, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    11. Paul Verstraten & Gerard Verweij & Peter Zwaneveld, 2018. "Why do wages grow faster in urban areas? Sorting of high potentials matters," CPB Discussion Paper 377.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    12. Eliasson, Kent & Westerlund, Olle, 2019. "Graduate migration, self-selection and urban wage premiums across the regional hierarchy," Umeå Economic Studies 962, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    13. Gilles Duranton & Diego Puga, 2020. "The Economics of Urban Density," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 3-26, Summer.
    14. Chauvin, Juan Pablo & Glaeser, Edward & Ma, Yueran & Tobio, Kristina, 2017. "What is different about urbanization in rich and poor countries? Cities in Brazil, China, India and the United States," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 17-49.
    15. Alessia Matano & Paolo Naticchioni, 2016. "What Drives The Urban Wage Premium? Evidence Along The Wage Distribution," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 191-209, March.
    16. Alessia Matano & Moisés Obaco & Vicente Royuela, 2020. "What drives the spatial wage premium in formal and informal labor markets? The case of Ecuador," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 823-847, September.
    17. Alessia Matano & Moisés Obaco & Vicente Royuela, 2018. "“What drives the spatial wage premium for formal and informal workers? The case of Ecuador”," AQR Working Papers 201806, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Jun 2018.
    18. Abel, Jaison R. & Deitz, Richard, 2015. "Agglomeration and job matching among college graduates," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 14-24.
    19. Guangliang Yang & Lixing Li & Shihe Fu, 2020. "Do rural migrants benefit from labor market agglomeration economies? Evidence from Chinese cities," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 910-931, September.
    20. Andini, Monica & de Blasio, Guido & Duranton, Gilles & Strange, William C., 2013. "Marshallian labour market pooling: Evidence from Italy," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 1008-1022.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agglomeration; labor matching; qualification mismatch; urban wage premium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:jecgeo:v:19:y:2019:i:6:p:1261-1286.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/joeg .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.