Human Capital Theory and Internal Migration: Do Average Outcomes Distort Our View of Migrant Motives?

PublikationArtikel (med peer review)
A. V. William Clark, Arbetskraftens rörlighet, Företagandets villkor, Humankapital, Martin Korpi, Migration, Urbanisering

Sammanfattning

By modelling the distribution of percentage income gains for movers in Sweden, using multinomial logistic regression, this paper shows that those receiving large pecuniary returns from migration are primarily those moving to the larger metropolitan areas and those with higher education, and that there is much more variability in income gains than what is often assumed in models of average gains to migration. This suggests that human capital models of internal migration often overemphasize the job and income motive for moving, and fail to explore where and when human capital motivated migration occurs.

Related content: Working paper No. 213

Korpi, M., & Clark, W. A. V. (2017). Human capital theory and internal migration: do average outcomes distort our view of migrant motives?Migration letters: an international journal of migration studies14(2), 237.


Liknande innehåll

Does new shopping centre development benefit or harm the local suburban market? Heterogeneous effects from shopping centre type and distance
Artikel (med peer review)Publikation
Mihaescu, O., Korpi, M., & Öner, Ö.
Publiceringsår

2024

Publicerat i

The Annals of Regional Science

Sammanfattning

We study the effects of new shopping centre developments on the performance of 7041 retail and hospitality firms located in the suburbs of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. In particular, we analyse to what extent these effects vary with respect to the distance to, and characteristics of, these newly established centres. Exploiting data covering a 17-year period (2000–2016) in a fixed-effects panel regression framework, we find that the establishment of new neighbourhood centres is associated with an average increase in revenues and employment for retail incumbents by + 1.80% and + 1.20%, respectively, for each 100-m reduction in distance to the respective centre. Similarly, the introduction of large regional centres is associated with an increase in the revenues and employment of hospitality firms by + 1.40% and + 1.20%, respectively, for every 100-m decrease in proximity to the new shopping centre. Retail firms are affected by regional centres only in terms of their revenues, which increase by + 0.70% for each 100-m decrease in distance. Our results indicate a diminishing impact of both regional and neighbourhood centres with increased distance, suggesting a broader geographical reach for the effects of regional centres.

Ratio Working Paper No 363: City Size, Employer Concentration, and Wage Income Inequality
Working paperPublikation
Korpi, M., & Halvarsson, D.
Publiceringsår

2023

Publicerat i

Rati Working Paper Series.

Sammanfattning

In this paper, we build upon a monopsony framework, suggested by Card et. al. 2016, which links firm level productivity and rent-sharing to wage inequality. Specifically, our research questions address i) to which extent labor market concentration across firms (within different types of locally situated industries) affects variation in wages among workers within these firms and industries, and ii) how this variation in turn spills over into economy-wide inequality (measured at the level of local labor markets). Using linked employer-employee full population data for Sweden, and an AKM modelling framework to separate between worker- and firm-level heterogeneity, our results suggest that higher firm-level fixed effects (a measure of rent-sharing) is associated with lower labor market employer concentration, something which affects average wage income among firms accordingly. Addressing wage income inequality by applying our model to different segments of the local labor market income distribution, we find that reduced average employer concentration in larger cities accounts for almost all variation in the (positive) link between city size-and wage inequality, except for the largest metropolises where it captures around 30-50 percent of variation depending on the income segment that we focus on.

Absolute income mobility and the effect of parent generation inequality: An extended decomposition approach
Artikel (med peer review)Publikation
Liss, E., Korpi, M., & Wennberg, K.
Publiceringsår

2023

Publicerat i

European Economic Review, 152, 104359.

Sammanfattning

We use full-population data to study trends in intergenerational absolute income mobility, measured as the ratio of children earning more than their parents, for 11 Swedish cohorts born 1972–1983. Absolute mobility during this period increases from 72% to 84% for men and from 76% to 86% for women—higher figures than in most other countries studied. To explain these results, we outline a novel decomposition strategy that accounts for cohort variation in parent-generation income inequality. All else equal, if income inequality is higher in the parent generation, more economic growth is required to achieve any given level of absolute mobility. We discuss implications for comparative research in intergenerational income mobility.

Visa fler