Opportunities and Competition in Thick Labor Markets: Evidence from Plant Closures

Peter Haller and Daniel Heuermann

VfS Annual Conference 2018 (Freiburg, Breisgau): Digital Economy from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: Since Marshall (1890), it has been widely held in urban economic theory that cities ensure workers against the risk of unemployment by offering a larger pool of potential jobs. Using a large administrative panel data set on workers affected by firm closures, we examine whether positive effects from a higher urban job density are offset by more intense competition between workers. When controlling for the sorting of workers between regions, we find no evidence that the number of days workers spend in unemployment decreases with local job density. Instead, longer unemployment periods in cities are partly driven by more intense competition for available jobs

Keywords: agglomeration; thick labor markets; displacement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J63 J64 R12 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Opportunities and competition in thick labor markets: Evidence from plant closures (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc18:181527

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