Migration Gravity, Networks, and Unemployment

Arnab Basu, Nancy Chau and Gary C. Lin
Additional contact information
Gary C. Lin: Johns Hopkins University

No 15808, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We develop and estimate a theory-consistent gravity model for interregional migration flows in the presence of unemployment. Micro-founded in a setting where search friction regulates labor market transitions, we derive a migration gravity equation for bilateral mobility that embodies a co-determined local unemployment term. As a theory of migration, our model connects directly with longstanding migration puzzles (e.g. declining internal mobility) as well as more novel concepts (e.g. home bias). As a model of unemployment, a migration gravity approach uncovers hitherto under-appreciated interregional roots of local unemployment, and furnishes an unemployment sufficient statistic interpretation to the familiar multilateral migration resistance term. We empirically test the predictions of the model using U.S. county-level data on bilateral migration and unemployment rates, bilateral connectedness data such as Facebook friendship links, and instrumental variable identification based on a novel similarity index of counties' historical ethnic-composition.

Keywords: friendship networks; gravity equation; internal migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J61 J64 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp15808.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:iza:izadps:dp15808

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 of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().