Why are Low-Skilled Workers less Mobile? The Role of Mobility Costs and Spatial Frictions

Benoit Schmutz, Modibo Sidibé and Elie Vidal-Naquet
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Modibo Sidibé: Duke University and CREST

No 2031, AMSE Working Papers from Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France

Abstract: Workers' propensity to migrate to another local labor market varies a lot by occupation. We use the model developed by ? to quantify the impact of mobility costs and search frictions on this mobility gap. We estimate the model on a matched employer-employee panel dataset describing labor market transitions within and between the 30 largest French cities for two groups at both ends of the occupational spectrum and find that: (i) mobility costs are very comparable in the two groups, so they are three times higher for blue-collar workers relative to their respective expected income; (ii) Depending on employment status, spatial frictions are between 1.5 and 3.5 times higher for blue-collar workers; (iii) Moving subsidies have little (and possibly negative) impact on the mobility gap, contrary to policies targeting spatial frictions.

Keywords: mobility costs; spatial frictions; migration; local labor markets; occupation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J61 J64 R12 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-ure
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Related works:
Journal Article: Why Are Low-Skilled Workers Less Mobile? The Role of Mobility Costs and Spatial Frictions (2021)
Working Paper: Why Are Low-Skilled Workers Less Mobile? The Role of Mobility Costs and Spatial Frictions (2021)
Working Paper: Why are Low-Skilled Workers less Mobile ? The role of Mobility Costs and Spatial Frictions (2020)
Working Paper: Why are Low-Skilled Workers less Mobile? The Role of Mobility Costs and Spatial Frictions (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2031

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