IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v107y2017i10p2877-2907.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Local Are Labor Markets? Evidence from a Spatial Job Search Model

Author

Listed:
  • Alan Manning
  • Barbara Petrongolo

Abstract

This paper models the optimal search strategies of the unemployed across space to characterize local labor markets. Our methodology allows for linkages between numerous areas, while preserving tractability. We estimate that labor markets are quite local, as the attractiveness of jobs to applicants sharply decays with distance. Also, workers are discouraged from searching in areas with strong competition from other job-seekers. However, as labor markets overlap, a local stimulus or transport improvements have modest effects on local outcomes, because ripple effects in job applications dilute their impact across a series of overlapping markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan Manning & Barbara Petrongolo, 2017. "How Local Are Labor Markets? Evidence from a Spatial Job Search Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(10), pages 2877-2907, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:10:p:2877-2907
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20131026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20131026
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5459
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=ni9UDN53GhmOn96Sp97kcj5l5L6M7zMc
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=kpEpQ8p6pdZ9EoozUlOXi_fn7fsL22_p
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2000. "Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262161877, December.
    2. Pissarides, C A, 1979. "Job Matchings with State Employment Agencies and Random Search," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 89(356), pages 818-833, December.
    3. Flinn, Christopher J & Heckman, James J, 1983. "Are Unemployment and Out of the Labor Force Behaviorally Distinct Labor Force States?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 28-42, January.
    4. Burda, Michael C. & Profit, Stefan, 1996. "Matching across space: Evidence on mobility in the Czech Republic," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 255-278, October.
    5. Hellerstein, Judith K. & Neumark, David & McInerney, Melissa, 2008. "Spatial mismatch or racial mismatch?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 464-479, September.
    6. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    7. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2008. "The Economics of Place-Making Policies," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 39(1 (Spring), pages 155-253.
    8. Burgess, Simon & Profit, Stefan, 2001. "Externalities in the matching of workers and firms in ritain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 313-333, June.
    9. Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2011. "The Incidence of Local Labor Demand Shocks," NBER Working Papers 17167, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Stephen R. G. Jones & W. Craig Riddell, 1999. "The Measurement of Unemployment: An Empirical Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(1), pages 147-162, January.
    11. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    12. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 2011. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 5.
    13. Matias Busso & Jesse Gregory & Patrick Kline, 2013. "Assessing the Incidence and Efficiency of a Prominent Place Based Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 897-947, April.
    14. Gerard R. Butters, 1977. "Equilibrium Distributions of Sales and Advertising Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 465-491.
    15. Bound, John & Holzer, Harry J, 2000. "Demand Shifts, Population Adjustments, and Labor Market Outcomes during the 1980s," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(1), pages 20-54, January.
    16. John F. Kain, 1968. "Housing Segregation, Negro Employment, and Metropolitan Decentralization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(2), pages 175-197.
    17. Eleonora Patacchini & Yves Zenou, 2007. "Spatial dependence in local unemployment rates," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 169-191, March.
    18. Coles, Melvyn G & Smith, Eric, 1996. "Cross-Section Estimation of the Matching Function: Evidence from England and Wales," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 63(252), pages 589-597, November.
    19. Leah Platt Boustan & Robert A. Margo, 2007. "Race, Segregation, and Postal Employment: New Evidence on Spatial Mismatch," NBER Working Papers 13462, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher A. Pissarides & Barbara Petrongolo, 2001. "Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 390-431, June.
    2. Kano, Shigeki & Ohta, Makoto, 2005. "Estimating a matching function and regional matching efficiencies: Japanese panel data for 1973-1999," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 25-41, January.
    3. Arjen de Vetten, 2007. "Incentives and Regional Coordination in Employment Services," CPB Memorandum 190, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    4. Calvo-Armengol, Antoni & Zenou, Yves, 2005. "Job matching, social network and word-of-mouth communication," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 500-522, May.
    5. Carsten Ochsen, 2021. "Age cohort effects on unemployment in the USA: Evidence from the regional level," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(4), pages 1025-1053, August.
    6. René Fahr & Uwe Sunde, 2002. "On the Effects of Career Choice: Matching Efficiency of Different Occupations and Education Levels," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 B1-1, International Conferences on Panel Data.
    7. Jos van Ommeren & Piet Rietveld, 2002. "Commuting, Spatial Search and Labour Market Bargaining," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-039/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    8. Mikko Moilanen, 2010. "Matching and settlement patterns: The case of Norway," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 89(3), pages 607-623, August.
    9. Fahr, René & Sunde, Uwe, 2001. "Disaggregate Matching Functions," IZA Discussion Papers 335, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Redding, Stephen J., 2016. "Goods trade, factor mobility and welfare," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 148-167.
    11. Ewa Gałecka-Burdziak, 2012. "Labour market matching – the case of Poland," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 43(3), pages 31-46.
    12. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Mandelman, Federico & Yu, Yang & Zanetti, Francesco, 2021. "The “Matthew effect” and market concentration: Search complementarities and monopsony power," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 62-90.
    13. Yashiv, Eran, 2007. "Labor search and matching in macroeconomics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1859-1895, November.
    14. Jekaterina Dmitrijeva & Mihails Hazans, 2007. "A Stock–Flow Matching Approach to Evaluation of Public Training Programme in a High Unemployment Environment," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 21(3), pages 503-540, September.
    15. Michel Blanc & François Hild, 2008. "Analyse des marchés locaux du travail : du chômage à l'emploi," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 415(1), pages 45-60.
    16. Patacchini, Eleonora & Zenou, Yves, 2006. "Search activities, cost of living and local labor markets," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 227-248, March.
    17. Kamil Galuscak & Daniel Munich, 2005. "Structural and Cyclical Unemployment: What Can We Derive from the Matching Function?," Working Papers 2005/02, Czech National Bank.
    18. Nasser Dine Mohamedou, 2022. "Labor mobility within Japanese regional labor markets and spillover effects," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 73(4), pages 625-645, October.
    19. Abid, Anis Bou & Drine, Imed, 2011. "Efficiency frontier and matching process on the labour market: Evidence from Tunisia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 1131-1139, May.
    20. Beaudry, Paul & Green, David A. & Sand, Benjamin M., 2014. "Spatial equilibrium with unemployment and wage bargaining: Theory and estimation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 2-19.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:10:p:2877-2907. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.