Lorenz Fischer (p)

Inge Hooijen

This paper attempts to explain the seeming unresponsiveness of labor to react to economic disparities in terms of migration. In theory, the potential of workers to implicitly alleviate regional disparities in, for example, unemployment or wage levels by relocating appears potent, but finds little support empirically. To resolve this perplexity, a dynamic discrete choice model is used, which translates into a two stage estimation strategy for recovering structural parameters. Investigating Austrian bilateral movements on the NUTS 3 level from 2002 to 2014, the results suggest that this unresponsiveness builds on two pillars. First, estimated average migration costs are in the range of 4.5 times the average wage per worker, which appears sizable enough to prevent taking advantage of economic opportunities for workers. These costs are shown to have decreased over time, though. Second, the relatively high variation in the random utility shifter can be interpreted as relative unimportance of regional disparities in forming migration decisions. Finally, a spatial approach on estimated regional valuations reveals an apparent 'beauty contest' of regions, where regions' own valuations suffer from proximity to highly attractive ones.

Michaela Fuchs (p), Robert Nadler, Duncan Roth, Stefan Theuer, Antje Weyh

Lorenz Fischer

This paper investigates the small-scale out- and return migration of workers within Germany. We use a unique dataset that covers virtually all labor market participants in Germany and trace their migration and employment history from 1999 to 2014. Mapping the spatial patterns of out- and return migration at the level of the NUTS 3-regions, we show that interregional migration is not limited to certain parts of the country but is rather pervasive. Out-migration broadly captures movements out of the larger cities and their surroundings. Likewise, return migration follows geographical patterns which are built between large cities and their hinter-land as well as between cities and rural regions. Featuring higher return rates in many in-stances, rural regions generally profit more from return migration than the larger cities. We further investigate in how far the return migrants can contribute to stabilize the labor demand in their region of origin, which is of special importance for the rural and economically weak regions. This impact varies profoundly between the single regions, with the negatively affect-ed regions being very heterogeneous. For the workers themselves, we find evidence for im-provements in their employment status that go along with internal return migration. This especially holds for those who were unemployed before out-migrating.

Kate Preston , Arthur Grimes (p)

Michaela Fuchs

See document (full paper)

Inge Hooijen (p), Ineke Bijlsma, Frank Cörvers, Davey Poulissen

Arthur Grimes

There is ample evidence from different research disciplines that locational factors such as employment opportunities or the availability of amenities and facilities are a powerful predictor of settlement behaviour. Recent research indicates that personality traits leave a geographical mark behind too. This study explores the spatial distribution of personality traits of recent graduates in the Netherlands and its correlates to a diverse set of regional characteristics. The results of the Getis-Ord G* statistic reveal a distinct geographical clustering of personality traits between the North and South of the Netherlands. The results furthermore show robust associations between personality traits and several regional demographic, health, political and physical outcomes. Additionally, we run a discrete choice model to examine the role of personality traits and regional characteristics in choosing alternative residential locations. The findings indicate that economic factors predominate and the effect sizes of personality traits show to be rather small in explaining location choice.