Spatial Mismatch: From the Hypothesis to the Theories

Laurent Gobillon (), Harris Selod () and Yves Zenou ()

No 693, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: Since the 1950s, there has been a steady decentralization of entry-level jobs towards the suburbs of American cities, while racial minorities —and particularly blacks— have remained in city centers. In this context, the spatial mismatch hypothesis argues that because the residential locations of minorities are disconnected from suburban job opportunities, lowskilled minorities residing in inner cities face adverse labor market outcomes. However, the reason why distance to jobs may be harmful to minorities has long remained unclear while the abundant but essentially empirical literature on spatial mismatch has led to much controversy. The present work presents the main stylized facts associated with spatial mismatch and reviews the main theoretical models that started to emerge in the late 1990s.

Keywords: urban unemployment; ghettos; segregation; discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J41 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-pke and nep-ure
Date: 2003-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations View citations in EconPapers (12) Track citations by RSS feed

Published as 'The Mechanisms of Spatial Mismatch ' in: Urban Studies, 2007, 44 (12), 2401-2427

Downloads: (external link)
http://ftp.iza.org/dp693.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Spatial Mismatch: From the Hypothesis to the Theories (2003)
Working Paper: Spatial Mismatch: From the Hypothesis of the Theories (2002)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp693

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Address: IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Mark Fallak ().