How Important Is Access to Jobs? Old Question – Improved Answer

Olof Åslund, John Östh () and Yves Zenou

No 2051, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We study the impact of job proximity on individual employment and earnings. The analysis exploits a Swedish refugee dispersal policy to get exogenous variation in individual locations. Using very detailed data on the exact location of all residences and workplaces in Sweden, we find that having been placed in a location with poor job access in 1990-91 adversely affected employment in 1999. Doubling the number of jobs in the initial location in 1990-91 is associated with 2.9 percentage points higher employment probability in 1999. The analysis suggests that residential sorting leads to underestimation of the impact of job access.

Keywords: natural experiment; endogenous location; spatial mismatch (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 J18 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2006-03
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Published - published in: Journal of Economic Geography, 2010, 10(3), 389-422

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Related works:
Journal Article: How important is access to jobs? Old question--improved answer (2010)
Working Paper: How Important is Access to Jobs? Old Question - Improved Answer (2009)
Working Paper: How Important is Access to Jobs? Old Question - Improved Answer (2006)
Working Paper: How important is access to jobs? Old question - improved answer (2006)
Working Paper: How Important is Access to Jobs? Old Question - Improved Answer (2006)
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