Fast Locations and Slowing Mobility

Patrick Coate and Kyle Mangum

No 26-26, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Abstract: This paper shows the declining trend in internal migration in the United States is primarily due to increasing home attachment in “fast locations,” areas with relatively high rates of population turnover. These locations were population growth destinations in the 20th century, with transient populations that settled as regional population growth converged. The qualitative patterns of the U.S. experience can be generated by a model of location choice in heterogeneous regions with overlapping generations when the population has a home bias that varies endogenously with the history of population change. Using a novel measure of home attachment, this paper estimates a structural model of migration that distinguishes moving frictions from home utility. Simulations quantify channels of the mobility decline. Rising home attachment accounts for much of the decline, predominantly in fast locations. Population aging explains most of the remainder but in a more spatially neutral way.

Keywords: declining internal migration; labor mobility; home attachment; rootedness; local ties; conditional choice probability estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C50 J61 R11 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 85
Date: 2026-05-19
Note: supersedes 19-49/R
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedpwp:103268

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DOI: 10.21799/frbp.wp.2026.26

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