Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Response of Labor Migration to Economic Shocks

Andrea Foschi, Christopher L. House, Christian Proebsting and Linda L. Tesar
Additional contact information
Christopher L. House: University of Michigan
Christian Proebsting: KU Leuven
Linda L. Tesar: University of Michigan

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2025, vol. 56, issue 1 (Spring), 67-137

Abstract: We examine the responsiveness of labor participation, unemployment, and labor migration to exogenous variations in labor demand. Our empirical approach considers four instruments for regional labor demand commonly used in the literature. Empirically, we find that labor migration is a significant margin of adjustment for all our instruments. Following an increase in regional labor demand, the initial increase in employment is accounted for mainly by a reduction in unemployment. Over time however, net labor in-migration becomes the dominant factor contributing to increased regional employment. After five years, roughly 60 percent of the increase in employment is explained by the change in population. Responses of labor migration are strongest for individuals age 20-35. Based on historical data back to the 1950s, we find no evidence of a decline in the elasticity of migration to changes in employment.

Keywords: Labor force; migration; economic shocks; regional labor demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go/ (text/html)

Related works:
Working Paper: Should I stay or should I go? The response of labor migration to economic shocks (2025)
Working Paper: Should I Stay or Should I Go? The Response of Labor Migration to Economic Shocks (2025)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bin:bpeajo:v:56:y:2025:i:2025-01:p:67-137

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Brookings Papers on Economic Activity from Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Haowen Chen ().