The laws of attraction: Economic drivers of inter-regional migration, housing costs and the role of policies

Orsetta Causa, Michael Abendschein and Maria Chiara Cavalleri

No 1679, OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: This paper sheds light on inter-regional migration, housing and the role of policies, drawing on a new comparative cross-country approach. The results show that OECD countries exhibit stark variation in both levels and trends in inter-regional migration, which is found to be highly responsive to local housing and economic conditions. In turn, a large number of policies in the area of housing, labour markets, social protection and product markets influence the responsiveness of inter-regional migration to local economic conditions. For instance, more flexible housing supply makes inter-regional migration more responsive to local economic conditions while higher regulatory barriers to business start-ups and entry in professions significantly reduce the responsiveness of inter-regional mobility to local economic conditions. The capacity of workers to move regions in response to local economic shocks is one key dimension of labour market dynamism which could, at the current juncture, contribute to the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. In this context, the paper proposes articulating structural with place-based policies to help prospective movers as well as stayers.

Keywords: housing markets; Internal migration; labour markets; place-based policies; regional disparities; regional economic conditions; regional house prices; regional mobility; social protection; structural policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H20 J61 R12 R23 R50 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-08-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-geo, nep-isf, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1679-en

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