Labour Mobility - An Adjustment Mechanism in Euroland?

Patrick Puhani

No 34, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether labour mobility is likely to act as a sufficient adjustment mechanism in the face of asymmetric shocks in Euroland. To this end, we estimate the elasticity of migration with respect to changes in unemployment and income on the basis of regional panel data provided by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Regression results are provided for Western Germany, France, and Italy. It is shown that labour mobility is highest in Germany, followed by France, and Italy. However, even in Germany, the accommodation of a shock to unemployment by migration takes several years. We conclude that labour mobility is extremely unlikely to act as a sufficient adjustment mechanism to asymmetric shocks in Euroland.

Keywords: euro; labour mobility; European Monetary Union (EMU) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E66 J61 P52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 1999-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Published - published as 'Labour Mobility: An Adjustment Mechanism in Euroland? Empirical Evidence for Western Germany, France and Italy' in: German Economic Review, 2001, 2 (2),127-140

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp34.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:dp34

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 ().