The effect of basic employment and regional factors on net migration: A study for Washington state

Relationships between net migration and basic employment, income, and regional urbanization are examined using 1960–70 census data for the state of Washington. Regression analysis indicates that changes in employment in agriculture, forestry, fishing and mining and in manufacturing have a direct effect on the rate of net migration. Change in median family income is also directly related to net migration but the effect is not as strong as that of employment. Location by region has a substantial impact on net population shifts with net inflows attributable to the urbanization which occurred in western Washington from 1960 to 1970. The employment, income, and regional effects are clarified by explicitly recognizing rapid growth in educational, governmental and retirement activity and recent large increases in basic employment which occurred in two small groups of counties. Overall, the results indicate that while the rate of net migration is responsive to changes in basic employment and family income, it is also important to recognize regional factors such as urbanization.A special note of appreciation is expressed to Mr. Sharif Masud who developed background data used in the analysis. Work was conducted under Regional Project W-118 of the Agricultural Research Center, Washington State University.     

Migration and the quasi-labor market in Russia

"This paper explores the twin concepts of labor demand and labor mobility during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. The study uses a detailed data set on labor stock, industrial labor demand, and labor flows for the 1980s in the Yaroslavl' Oblast, and data on migration and regional labor markets for all Russian regions in the 1990s. Contextual features, such as the social contract, full employment, methods of labor allocation, and a generally low rate of geographic mobility, distinguish the centrally planned quasi-labor market from the labor market in capitalist democracies. The findings suggest that net in-migration induces employment change in the current period rather than in a future period. The job creation effects appear concurrent with migration during the Soviet period. In the post-Soviet period, migration and employment relationships are not predictable based on the same relationships during the Soviet period."     

DOES MIGRATION EQUALISE REGIONAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATES? EVIDENCE FROM AUSTRALIA

Whether inter-regional migration equilibrates regional economic performance is a question which has received considerable attention in recent literature. The author examines that question, focusing upon regional unemployment rates and real wages within the context of a 24-hour equation econometric model of the interaction between regional wages, regional unemployment, and inter-regional migration in Australia. Used to solve for steady-state values of wage and unemployment differences, the model determined that the steady state involves non-zero unemployment rate differences and non-zero wage differences. The model is also used to investigate the stability of the equilibrating mechanism and to simulate the effects upon unemployment, migration, and wage rates of a shock to employment growth. The main findings are that inter-regional equilibrating forces are slow and do not help equalize regional unemployment rates or wages.     

The regional labor market adjustment process: Determinants of changes in rates of labor force participation,unemployment, and migration

This paper employs a simultaneous-equations model to examine the regional labor market adjustment process for a sample of United States counties over the 1960–1970 period. The interaction between employment change and migration is well known, but that between employment change and labor force participation has been largely neglected. Labor force participation response, especially among women, is shown to be an important endogenous element in the labor market adjustment process. Important asymmetries are also evident between growing and declining regions, and these asymmetries suggest that the well-established link between employment and migration may have more force in growing than in declining areas.This study was supported by a grant from the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce.     

Interregional labor migration and information flows

A model of interregional labor migration is developed that incorporates a complex system of information concerning migration and employment opportunities, as well as a heterogeneous population in which groups of workers differ in their assumed levels of skill, attitudes toward risk, and willingness to move. "Three channels are examined: interpersonal communication, general source information, and specific source information targeted at unemployed workers. In this process, trajectories of welfare levels (composed of wage plus nonwage benefits), information flows, vacancy and unemployment levels are generated for different worker and job types, regional aggregates, and the system as a whole. The behavior of the model is examined by means of numerical simulations and sensitivity analyses."     

The effects of fiscal equalisation in a model with endogenous regional governments: an analysis in a two-region numerical model

This paper is concerned primarily with the economic and welfare consequences of federal redistributive grants. We use a model which has two regions, each with households, firms and regional governments as well as a federal government. Private agents are (utility and profit) maximisers and we assume that regional governments are empire-builders in that they choose their expenditure and tax levels so as to maximise total expenditure—the size of their empire. Labour is free to move between regions in response to utility differences and does so until such differences have been eliminated. Inter-regional migration, inter-regional trade flows and federal government redistribution are the main sources of interconnectedness between the two regions. The model is linearised in log-differences and simulated using a calibration based on Australian state-level data. We find that the welfare effect of intergovernmental transfers is trivial but that all other variables of interest change substantially—consumption, employment, prices, taxes, wages, output and government expenditure. Finally, the signs of the effects of a federal transfer are not affected by the empire-building behaviour of regional governments although the magnitude of the effects is generally dampened.     

Interregional gross migration and structural changes in local industries

"In this paper the impacts of structural changes in local industries on interregional gross migration in Japan for 1974-85 are empirically examined. Structural changes in local industries, which are represented by a simple index of local employment growth dispersion across sectors, induce interregional migration, as well as intraregional migration. The estimation results with pooled data support this hypothesis. The impacts of structural changes in local industries are different across gross migration flows (rural-urban, urban-rural, urban-urban, and rural-rural migration), as are the impacts of other determinants of migration such as earnings differentials, aggregate employment growth, national unemployment, distance, and age structure."     

The dynamics of Swedish national and regional house price movement

In this study, the recent persistent growth of regional house price pattern in Sweden is explained by the fundamental variables and the regional distributive perspective on household income and wealth are indicated to be important to understand the different level and development of regional housing market. We also discuss the long running relationship between house prices and migration flows and highlight its critical role on house price analyses.     

The dynamics of Swedish national and regional house price movement

In this study, the recent persistent growth of regional house price pattern in Sweden is explained by the fundamental variables and the regional distributive perspective on household income and wealth are indicated to be important to understand the different level and development of regional housing market. We also discuss the long running relationship between house prices and migration flows and highlight its critical role on house price analyses.     

Functional forms and the relevance of contiguous migration in the study of migration and employment growth

Previous studies on interstate migration have dealt with total migration without decomposing it into contiguous and noncontiguous migration flows. Since migration over borders of contiguous states may merely reflect changes in residence without changes in economic activities, the use of total migration data might reduce the reliability of empirical results. In this study, a simultaneous-equation model containing two equations, one for migration and the other for employment growth, has been specified in a general form and estimated by the 2SLS method for total, contiguous and noncontiguous migration flows. Results obtained from the use of 1970 Census data show that noncontiguous migration behaves significantly different from contiguous migration, and that noncontiguous migration, rather than total migration, should be used for the study of factors affecting interstate migration. Results also indicate that the log-linear functional form commonly used in empirical studies cannot be accepted statistically.     

Does climate matter? An empirical study of interregional migration in China

This study focuses on the role of local climate conditions in spurring interregional migration in China over the period 2000 to 2010. We developed a robust empirical approach based on a correlated random effects model and a prefecture-level panel dataset which allows us to account for both within province migration flows and prefecture-specific characteristics. Empirical results reveal that climate conditions are important determinants of migration in China. Specifically, prefectures with warmer winter, cooler summer, and more available sunshine are more attractive to migrants. Economic factors such as income level and employment opportunities are also important drivers of population growth.     

Interdistrict migration in Great Britain 1980-81: a multistream model with a commuting option

"In this paper an existing three-stream model of migration is adopted and extended to provide a first representation of district-district flows within Great Britain in 1980-81. The extended model incorporates an option for prospective migrants to choose commuting rather than a residential move after finding a new workplace, and employs a logistic function of distance in the regional or environmental stream where migrational opportunities tend not to be independent. Results are presented for the distribution of flows between local, regional, and national streams and for the geographical pattern of pushes and pulls in each."     

Interregional migration models with source and interaction information

"Information flows in models of migration are emphasized. In particular, migrants are assumed to react to two types of information about job vacancies. 'Interaction information' may be defined as interpersonal communication between recent migrants and their former neighbors or friends, and 'source information' represents a direct flow of information from employers or agencies to individuals. Models are developed that investigate the effects of various communication rates and information retention levels on vacancy rates and labor-force population trajectories. It is found that attempts by planners to reduce regional inequities in vacancy rates through controlled advertising may be successful, but at the possible cost of increasing temporal fluctuations of regional vacancy rates."     

Unemployment, selective employment measures and inter-regional mobility of labour

This article examines the impact of selective employment measures on the subsequent migration behaviour of the participants. We hypothesise that employment measures targeted at high unemployment regions may discourage out-migration of the unemployed. Since the possible locking-in effect mainly influences those with the weakest employment prospects, selective employment measures may impede the adjustment process of regional labour markets. Results suggest that employment measures reduce the mobility of the unemployed, but only during an era of low unemployment when the employment prospects in potential destination regions are favourable. In an era of high unemployment, these measures are not likely to contribute to greater regional unemployment disparities. There is also large variation in the locking-in effects across different employment programmes and specific groups of job seekers. Received: 6 December 1999 / Accepted: 16 March 2001 RID="*" ID="*" This study is part of a project supported by the Academy of Finland (project number 43546). I would like to thank the referees for thoughtful comments and suggestions.     

Labor migration amongst hierarchically competing and intervening origins and destinations

"A spatial interaction methodology is developed for modeling flows in a hierarchical system. A competing and intervening destinations framework is employed to model and predict U.S. state-to-state labor migration. This analysis is used to assess the importance of geographic variables in explaining variations in regional labor flows. Empirical findings suggest that U.S. labor migration is largely explained by...size, distance, locational accessibility, and intervening opportunities in a spatial hierarchy. It is also suggested that lagged migration or migrant stock is a product of the combined effect of these forces."     

An interregional labour market model incorporating vacancy chains and social security

This paper deals with three aspects of interregional demo-economic models which are important with respect to the analysis of regional labour market developments. First, attention is paid to forecasts of the exogenous regional variables, such as investments, exports, etc. Because data at the regional level are usually scarce, it is suggested to make these projections by means of a top-down model. Second, the social security sector is incorporated in the model framework, because changes in social security benefits, which are common in many Western countries nowaday, usually have substantial impacts on regional economic and demographic structures. Third, a vacancy chain model instead of a simple employment growth equation is tied to the standard demo-economic model framework. In this way not only employment growth but also migration, job mobility and related income effects can be taken into account.     

The analysis of motivation-specific migration streams

"This paper investigates the usefulness in migration analysis of disaggregation according to motives, constraints, and/or search procedures. A two-stream gravity model distinguishing between 'long-distance' and 'short-distance' migrational types is developed and applied to the analysis of intercounty flows in Great Britain, by means of a distance cut-off algorithm. The results confirm the distinctiveness and importance of these two streams which account for almost all the variance in flows at the intercounty level. The two streams are shown to respond differentially to environmental, housing, and employment factors. The two polarised types of movement cannot be equated simply with particular motives, however, but reflect basic decisions about search strategy."     

Toward a wiser projectification: Macroeconomic effects of firm-level project work

Several studies have investigated projectification and its effects at the firm level, but the macroeconomic implications of project work have scarcely been considered. This paper analyzes the macroeconomic effects of firm-level projectification. We study the interlinkages between different sectors by extending standard input-output modeling and analyze the static and dynamic effects of projectification. The results indicate that projectification can have positive macroeconomic implications for production/innovativeness, employment and income that differ across economic sectors, but projectification can also have negative impacts. As a major implication, the use of temporary forms of organizing cannot be recommended without reproach but depends on the economic sector and sectoral interdependencies.     

The migration response to the economic turnaround in New England

"This paper is an investigation of the dynamics of interstate migration flows to and from New England since 1975. The main goal of the research is to study the timing and volume of the lagged migration adjustment to the regional economic turnaround and the temporal stability of patterns of regional inflows and outflows. The paper is an examination of the responsiveness of interstate migration to changing regional economic conditions based on annual interstate migration data and a set of cross-sectional destination-specific Poisson regression models." The data are from a series developed by the Bureau of the Census based on Federal income tax returns.     

The dynamics of spatial labor mobility in the Netherlands

"This paper discusses several factors that may explain [the] dynamic properties of internal labor migration. [The authors] focus especially on the influence of labor market and housing conditions on the mobility of people. A two-stage, generation-allocation model is proposed to investigate the role of different factors in the explanation of aggregate interregional migration flows. This model is applied to recent data on interprovincial labor migration in the Netherlands. The results indicate that housing supply seems to be an important determinant of temporal developments of spatial mobility, and that also the conditions on national and regional labor markets are associated with specific properties of recent migration patterns."