THE GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF HUMAN CAPITAL: MEASUREMENT OF CONTRIBUTING MECHANISMS

This paper investigates how the geographic distribution of human capital—measured as college attainment—evolves over time. With U.S. data, I decompose generation‐to‐generation changes in local human capital into three factors: the previous generation's human capital, intergenerational transmission of skills from parents to their children, and migration of the children. I find significant persistence of local skills at the commuting zone (local labor market) level. Labor market size, climate, and local colleges affect local skill measures. Skills move from urban‐to‐rural labor markets through intergenerational transmission but from rural‐to‐urban labor markets through migration.     

DOES AGGLOMERATION MATTER EVERYWHERE?: NEW FIRM LOCATION DECISIONS IN RURAL AND URBAN MARKETS*

We test whether commonly used measures of agglomeration economies encourage new firm entry in both urban and rural markets. Using new firm location decisions in Iowa and North Carolina, we find that measured agglomeration economies increase the probability of new firm entry in both urban and rural areas. Firms are more likely to locate in markets with an existing cluster of firms in the same industry, with greater concentrations of upstream suppliers or downstream customers, and with a larger proportion of college‐educated workers in the local labor supply. Firms are less likely to enter markets with no incumbent firms in the sector or where production is concentrated in relatively few sectors. The same factors encourage both stand‐alone start‐ups and establishments built by multiplant firms. Commuting decisions exhibit the same pattern as new firm entry with workers commuting from low to high agglomeration markets. Because agglomeration economies are important for rural firm entry also, policies encouraging new firm entry should focus on relatively few job centers rather than encouraging new firm entry in every small town.     

COMPETITIVE AND IMPERFECTLY COMPETITIVE LABOR MARKETS IN URBAN AREAS*

ABSTRACT. In this paper, I present a model incorporating two kinds of spatial labor markets: a centralized competitive market at the central business district (CBD) and dispersed local markets across economic space under imperfect competition. Wage differentials and the size of the two types of markets are endogenously determined by rational choices of workers as well as profit maximization of firms. Workers can exercise rational choices with respect to market places where they commute and supply their labor. In this model, I attempt, in effect, to integrate the Hotelling-type paradigm and the Samuelson-type paradigm in a consistent spatial setting.     

Discourse on the Docks: Containerization and Inter-Union Work Disputes in US Ports, 1955–85

Research on labour markets has often focused on the economics of work location. Far less attention has been paid to how labour markets are constructed discursively. In this paper, I analyse how the creation of rival discourses concerning traditions of work were central elements in the efforts of two unions to structure local labour markets, in order to retain work for their members in the face of technological innovation. The struggle between the two unions centred on their abilities to construct rival discourses concerning the historical geography of work in the industry. These formed the basis for judicial interpretations concerning whether the actions of the dockers' union represented a legal work preservation action or an illegal work acquisition measure. Such interpretations shaped the subsequent evolution of work and labour markets in the industry. The ability of economic actors to shape discourse in their favour can be a powerful force in the regulation of local labour markets, and thus in the production of economic landscapes.     

Migration and Occupational Choice among Young Labor Force Entrants: A Human Capital Model

Interregional variations in the conditions for entering the labor force are investigated by analyzing interdependencies between migration behavior and occupational choice for young labor force entrants. The human capital framework indicates that occupational choice depends on the costs and returns associated with entering various occupations, and that interregional variation in these costs and returns is a major reason for migration. Occupational choice and migration behavior will be interdependent if the costs and returns for particular occupations vary over local labor markets, relative to other occupations, and patterns of interdependence between the two decisions are analyzed, using a model of the joint choice of occupation and location. An empirical analysis of occupational choices and migration behavior for young people who entered the U.S. labor force in the 1975–80 period indicates that the odds for entering professional or managerial occupations varied with origin and migration behavior in systematic ways.     

Factory ‘nuns’: the ethnicization of migrant labor in the making of Tibetan carpets

Many debates over migrant labor politics in contemporary China rely upon essentialist notions of ethnic identity. In contrast, I identify migrant labor politics as transnational processes through which women migrants from rural Tibet become ethnic workers. Drawing on post-colonial theories of ethnicity and on feminist literature on global capitalism, this article analyzes the uses of migrant laborers in a globalizing Tibetan carpet industry. First, I investigate the making of Tibetan carpets and the essentialist construction of ‘carpet weavers’ employed by Tibetan–Nepalese carpet factory owners, carpet dealers in New York City, and various participants in Lhasa, including party cadres, international non-government organizations (NGOs), and overseas investors. I argue that the functioning of the international carpet business relies upon the ethnicization of migrant labor, in which labor subjugation involves creating ethnic subjects and ethnicized boundaries. This form of labor commodification is driven by both an economic logic and a moral imperative for preserving or regenerating ‘ethnic culture.’ Second, through the lens of gender, I look closely at the ethnicization of migrant labor in post-socialist Lhasa, analyzing its significance for the labor force in the carpet industry. The women carpet weavers, who mostly come from Tibet's rural areas, I found, strive to reconcile their desires for female autonomy with labor positions that reduce them to strangers in the city. Some women attempt to overcome their experiences of alienation while actively engaging in the reproduction of the patriarchal family as well as in labor hierarchies at work.     

STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN LABOR DEMAND AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN LOCAL LABOR MARKETS*

ABSTRACT. It seems quite clear that the US. economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s was exposed to an accelerated rate of structural change resulting from energy price shocks, increased international competition and technological change. It is of considerable interest, then, that previous attempts to examine structural unemployment in this period find that structural shift in employment generally were not Significant determinants of the unemployment rate. This paper revisits this issue using a measure of structural job shifts drawn from the literature on establishment job creation and destruction. The results show that changes in the structure of labor demand across industry by establishment-size sectors had a statically significant and empirically important positive effect on the unemployment rate in a sample of 200 metropolitan labor markets during the 1976 to 1984 period.     

Public policy,local labor demand,and migration in Sweden, 1979-84

"A model of private local labor demand and interjurisdictional migration is presented and estimated using data from Swedish counties and municipalities for 1979-84. Our goal is to compare the effects on local labor markets of distinctive public-sector programs with those of traditional market variables. We find that local income taxes and tax-equalization grants have important effects on local labor markets; regional development policy measures and geographical-mobility subsidies do not. Thus, recent efforts scaling back some of these programs may not materially alter the regional economy's performance. Wages and other traditional market variables are also often found to influence significantly local labor markets."     

SPATIAL HETEROGENEITY AND THE WAGE CURVE REVISITED*

ABSTRACT Most “wage curve” studies ignore the geography of local labor markets. However, when a local labor market is in close proximity of other labor markets, a local shock that increases unemployment may not lead to lower pay rates if employers fear outward migration of their workers. Hence, the unemployment elasticity of pay will be greater, the more isolated the local labor market is. Wages are also expected to be higher in regions that interact strongly with other regions. These hypotheses are confirmed by means of an estimation of wage curves with data for 327 regions of western Germany over the period 1990–1997.     

THE EFFECTS OF TRADE WITH DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ON THE REGIONAL DEMAND FOR SKILL IN THE U.S.: EVIDENCE FROM COUNTY DATA*

ABSTRACT Using county‐level data from the 1980s and 1990s and a county‐level trade measure that incorporates the county's industrial mix and patterns of international trade across industries, I provide new evidence that trade with developing countries raises the demand for skill and the skill premium in the U.S. Consistent with Heckscher–Ohlin, I find that trade driven by differences in factor endowments has an economically significant impact on local labor markets. The evidence suggests that when trade with developing countries rises, counties with higher skill endowment and greater employment in industries with larger trade shares experience greater relative demand for high‐skilled labor.     

La dynamique spatiale des marchés locaux de l'emploi au sein du champ métropolitain de Québec, 1981–2001

Spatial Dynamics of Local Labour Markets in the Québec City Metropolitan Field, 1981–2001
This research analyzes the spatial dynamics (from 1981 to 2001) of local labour markets at an infra-regional scale, namely the Québec metropolitan field, with particular emphasis on interactions between the metropolitan region and its hinterland. It seeks to better understand the factors underlying this evolution. Centrographic analyses were performed to characterize the evolution of the spatial configuration of local labour markets (displacement of gravity centre, shape change, evolution of dispersion indices and of workforce preferential distribution axes). Between 1981 and 2001, almost all employment poles experienced an increase in the mean-distance tied to their recruitment area, that being particularly true for peri-metropolitan poles which employ an increasing part of their workforce inside the metropolitan labour basin, where a more qualified and diversified labour force is available; thus, giving rise to significant reverse commuting. In addition to the influence of distance to metropolitan area, a multiple regression model shows that factors such as manufacturing specialization and employment growth within job centres also play a crucial role in the spatial dynamics of local labour markets in the Québec City metropolitan field.     

URBAN UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE SPATIAL STRUCTURE OF LABOR MARKETS: AN EXAMINATION OF THE “TODARO PARADOX” IN A SPATIAL CONTEXT*

ABSTRACT The Todaro paradox and the effects of job creation in urban areas will be re-examined in our spatial model in which the radius of the labor market is endogenously determined by the rational choices of workers. The travel cost of workers plays a crucial role in the choice between two different types of response, migration or commuting. By considering travel costs, we find that the Todaro paradox can be applied to developed, as well as developing, countries. Job creation in urban areas can produce a paradoxical increase in urban unemployment in developed countries, because the low marginal cost of travel will significantly increase the radius of the urban labor market and create new labor supply without migration.     

Spillover Effects of Welfare Reforms in State Labor Markets

This paper estimates the effects of welfare reforms on a state's employment and wage rates. Welfare reforms include: pushing welfare recipients into the labor force, financial incentives to recipients for working, wage subsidies to employers of recipients, and community service jobs for recipients. The effects of these policies are analyzed using a newly estimated model of state labor markets. Simulations show that jobs found by welfare reform participants cause sizable displacement effects for nonparticipants. Displacement effects of labor supply policies are highest when a state's unemployment is high, whereas displacement effects of labor demand policies are highest when a state's unemployment is low.     

Regional Labor Market Dynamics, Housing, and Migration

Abstract.  This study explores the impact of plant‐level labor market dynamics and housing markets on gross migration flows. The internal and the external reorganizations of regional labor markets are shown to be related. An increase in internal turnover of jobs and workers in regional labor markets is found to increase net‐migration. This effect arises mainly from a reduction in out‐migration. Housing markets constitute constraints for migration. In particular, an increase in regional housing prices and a large share of owner‐occupancy housing discourages net‐migration to a region by reducing in‐migration. In contrast, the out‐migration rate remains largely unaffected by housing markets.     

The Local Implications of Major Job Transformations in the City: A Spatial Microsimulation Approach

The changing dynamics of regional and local labor markets during the last decades have led to an increasing labor market segmentation and socioeconomic polarization and to a rise of income inequalities at the regional, urban, and intraurban level. These problems call for effective social and local labor market policies. However, there is also a growing need for methods and techniques capable of efficiently estimating the likely impact of social and economic change at the local level. For example, the common methodologies for estimating the impacts of large firm openings or closures operate at the regional level. The best of these models disaggregate the region to the city (Armstrong 1993; Batey and Madden 1983). This paper demonstrates how spatial microsimulation modeling techniques can be used for local labor market analysis and policy evaluation to assess these impacts (and their multiplier effects) at the local level‐to measure the effects on individuals and their neighborhood services. First, we review these traditional macroscale and mesoscale regional modeling approaches to urban and regional policy analysis and we illustrate their merits and limitations. Then, we examine the potential of spatial microsimulation modeling to create a new framework for the formulation, analysis and evaluation of social and local labor market policies at the individual or household level. Outputs from a local labor market microsimulation model for Leeds are presented. We show how first it is possible to investigate the interdependencies between individual's or households labor market attributes at the microscale and to model their accessibilities to job opportunities in different localities. From this base we show how detailed what‐if microspatial analysis can be performed to estimate the impact of major changes in the local labor market through job losses or gains, including local multiplier effects.     

Assessing the Impact of Location on Women's Labor Market Outcomes: A Methodological Exploration

Location and the nature of locally available employment opportunities is believed to shape labor force participation, job type, and wages. Analysts investigating this issue have encountered problems in operationalizing the concept of “locally available employment opportunities.” We first review the grounds for expecting a relationship between local context and employment outcomes for women and then critically assess the methods and measures that analysts have used to explore the relationship. Finally, we describe a new approach for measuring local employment context that consists of a fine-scaled measure individually tailored for each woman in the sample. Using discriminant analysis we ask whether the spatial variables measuring local employment context are important determinants of women's employment in female-dominated occupations. The results suggest that for most groups of women (defined by city or suburban residence and by sociodemographics) the spatial variables are not important. For well-educated, part-time employed women with young children, however, living in an area rich in female-dominated job opportunities increases the likelihood of having a job in a gender-typical occupation; for these women, the local employment context does affect labor market outcomes.     

Demographic Cycle Effects on Migration Timing and the Delayed Mobility Phenomenon

This paper examines the effect of a cohort's size and position in the demographic cycle on the timing of migration during the young, labor force years. Previous literature has shown that demographic cycles are highly influential in determining the level of migration: migration propensities of young adults tend to be lower for large cohorts due to competitive labor markets and depressed job opportunities. This study argues that demographic cycles can also influence the timing of migration, and proposes a methodology that separates the examination of migration levels from that of migration timing. Analyses using Current Population Survey data show that members of small cohorts tend to move earlier on in their life cycle than members of large cohorts. Reconstructed age-schedules of migration for large and small cohorts support the existence of “delayed mobility” among baby boomers.     

Return migration in China: a case study of Zhumadian in Henan province

This paper examines the causes and process of return migration from the coastal region to the inland provinces in China since the early 2010s, based on the case study of Zhumadian city in Henan Province. Surveys administered to both rural migrants from Zhumadian to Shenzhen and recent returnees to Zhumadian are presented. Industrial relocation and the development of inland provinces trigger the current wave of return migration. Family obligations, better prospects of the hometown, and barriers to settle in Shenzhen because of the hukou system are the principal reasons to return. Most of the migrants return to work in a factory or start a business. Some migrants purchase apartments in Zhumadian as a prelude to returning and starting a business at a future date. Returnees prefer settling down in urban areas rather than in their rural origins. In light of the empirical findings, the authors argue that return migration will ease the mismatch of labor supply and demand between the inland and coastal provinces, such that the Lewis Turning Point has not been reached yet. The continuing process of rural migrants returning to and settling down in Zhumadian suggests a way to achieve some of the goals in China’s new-type urbanization plan, as local governments may address the two major challenges of the plan, namely, local job creation and financing for increased demand for public services.     

上海市就业市场状况与城市犯罪的空间计量分析

基于2008年上海市经济普查数据和城市犯罪数据,改变以往学者以失业率描述就业市场状况的做法,构建就业市场状况指数,并将其扩展到所有行业;同时,构建空间计量模型,研究上海市就业市场状况与刑事犯罪率之间关系,结果表明:1)就业市场状况对刑事犯罪率影响显著,不同行业的影响并不相同;其中,批发零售业、租赁和商业服务业、居民服务和其他服务业、公共管理和社会组织业就业的集中会引发犯罪活动的发生。2)空间计量模型在解释就业市场状况与刑事犯罪率之间关系时,计量效果良好。3)"空间效应"是影响刑事犯罪率的重要因素,其影响来自"空间邻近效应"和"空间误差效应"。     

Divided we fall? The effect of manufacturing decline on the social capital of US communities

What happens to local communities when manufacturing disappears? I examine changes in associational density over nearly two decades as a proxy for social capital in US labor markets. Exploiting plausibly exogenous trade-induced shocks to local manufacturing activity, I test whether deindustrialization is associated with greater or lower organizational membership. I uncover a robust negative relationship between the two variables, particularly acute in rural and mostly-White areas. My findings, however, are sensitive to measurement: There are no clearly discernible effects of deindustrialization on social capital when I consider alternative proxies for the outcome. To reconcile these results, I present evidence suggesting that economic adversity may induce a qualitative, rather than quantitative, change in social capital.