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Internal migration and human capital theory: To what extent is it selective?

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

Sammanfattning

Empirical studies of internal labor migration, modelling average outcomes, suggest migrants move to enhance returns to their labor. In contrast, major international surveys show less than a third of internal migrants as motivated by employment reasons. Using Swedish panel data for the years 2001-2009, this paper addresses this disconnect by examining the full distribution of migrant income changes. Results from initial CEM matching and quantile regression suggest that large returns to internal migration are mostly captured by the higher educated, those initially low in the income distribution and those heading into the largest metropolitan regions. Much if not most of migration outcomes are however a wash and indeed often negative in terms of pay-off. This suggests models of average outcomes as insufficient in addressing human capital motivated migration.

Related content: Working paper No. 244

Korpi, M. & Clark, W. A. V. (2015). Internal migration and human capital theory: To what extent is it selective?Economics Letters, 136: 31-34. DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2015.08.016

Liknande innehåll

Stadsstorlek och konkurrens bland arbetsgivare: Hur påverkas lönepremier och inkomstojämlikhet?
RapporterPublikation
Halvarsson, D., & Korpi, M.
Publiceringsår

2025

Publicerat i

Institutet för arbetsmarknads- och utbildningspolitisk utvärdering.

Sammanfattning

I föreliggande studie undersöker vi den s.k. storstadslönepremien och dess förhållande till arbetsgivarkoncentration inom lokala arbetsmarknader. Med storstadslönepremien avses det positiva samband som – allt annat lika – finns mellan löneinkomst och stadstorlek. Vi skattar denna lönepremie både utifrån traditionella metoder och ett nytt beräkningssätt som utgår från företagsspecifika faktorer (företagsfixa effekter), och finner att dessa två beräkningssätt i stort sett ger likvärdiga resultat, något som talar för att storstadslönepremien såsom den vanligen skattas sannolikt även är kopplad till faktorer som ligger på företagsnivå snarare än endast faktorer på individnivå.  Beroende på analysmetod finner vi därefter att ungefär 20-30 procent av lönepremien kan förklaras av graden av konkurrens om arbetskraften inom lokala branscher. Även om detta samband gäller för alla inkomstsegment, finner vi slutligen att graden av konkurrens har störst påverkan på toppinkomstnivåer inom lokala arbetsmarknader (över den 90:e percentilen). Våra resultat går alltså att tolka som att lokal arbetsgivarkoncentration även påverkar inkomstojämlikheten inom lokala arbets­marknader.

City size, employer concentration, and wage income inequality
Working paperPublikation
Halvarsson, D., & Korpi, M.
Publiceringsår

2025

Publicerat i

Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU)

Sammanfattning

This study investigates the relationship between the urban wage premium and employer concentration using Swedish full population employer-employee data. Departing from an AKM modeling framework to distinguish worker from firm specific heterogeneity – a measure of rent-sharing – we then measure the urban wage premium using differences in the estimated firm fixed effects at the level of local industries, nested within local labor markets. Our results suggest that labor market employer concentration, as calculated using the Hirschman-Herfindahl index and a leave-one-out instrumental variable design, can account for a significant share of the estimated urban wage premium (UWP). Addressing city-level wage income inequality by applying our model to different segments of the local labor market income distribution, we find that while the UWP pertains to all income segments, it is largest for top-income levels (above the 90th percentile), and within this segment employer concentration also has the largest explanatory power. Thus, while being an important explanatory factor for all percentiles of the local income distribution, a relatively lower employer concentration within larger cities, and vice versa, higher concentration within smaller cities, primarily help explain the variance of top wages within these cities/labor markets.

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.

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