IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/red/issued/12-205.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The (Un)importance of Geographical Mobility in the Great Recession"

Author

Listed:
  • Siddharth Kothari

    (Stanford University)

  • Itay Saporta Eksten

    (Stanford University)

  • Edison Yu

    (Stanford University)

Abstract

Unemployment during and after the Great Recession has been persistently high. One concern is that the housing bust reduced geographical mobility and prevented workers from moving for jobs. We characterize flows out of unemployment that are related to geographical mobility to construct an upper bound on the effect of mobility on unemployment between 2007 and 2012. The effect of geographical mobility is always small: Using pre-recession mobility rates, decreased mobility can account for only an 11 basis points increase in the unemployment rate over the period. Using dynamics of renter geographical mobility in this period to calculate homeowner counterfactual mobility, delivers similar results. Using the highest mobility rate observed in the data, reduced mobility accounts for only a 33 basis points increase in the unemployment rate. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Suggested Citation

  • Siddharth Kothari & Itay Saporta Eksten & Edison Yu, 2013. "The (Un)importance of Geographical Mobility in the Great Recession"," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(3), pages 553-563, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:red:issued:12-205
    DOI: 10.1010/j.red.2013.03.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2013.03.002
    Download Restriction: Access to full texts is restricted to ScienceDirect subscribers and institutional members. See http://www.sciencedirect.com/ for details.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1010/j.red.2013.03.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. International Monetary Fund, 2010. "United States: Selected Issues Paper," IMF Staff Country Reports 2010/248, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Chan, Sewin, 2001. "Spatial Lock-in: Do Falling House Prices Constrain Residential Mobility?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 567-586, May.
    3. Greg Kaplan & Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, 2012. "Interstate Migration Has Fallen Less Than You Think: Consequences of Hot Deck Imputation in the Current Population Survey," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(3), pages 1061-1074, August.
    4. Valletta, Robert G., 2013. "House lock and structural unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 86-97.
    5. Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, 2012. "Negative equity does not reduce homeowners’ mobility," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Feb, pages 1-17.
    6. Modestino, Alicia Sasser & Dennett, Julia, 2013. "Are American homeowners locked into their houses? The impact of housing market conditions on state-to-state migration," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 322-337.
    7. Raven Molloy & Christopher L. Smith & Abigail Wozniak, 2011. "Internal Migration in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 173-196, Summer.
    8. Brigitte C. Madrian & Lars John Lefgren, 1999. "A Note on Longitudinally Matching Current Population Survey (CPS) Respondents," NBER Technical Working Papers 0247, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Sterk, Vincent, 2015. "Home equity, mobility, and macroeconomic fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 16-32.
    10. Ferreira, Fernando & Gyourko, Joseph & Tracy, Joseph, 2010. "Housing busts and household mobility," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 34-45, July.
    11. Greg Kaplan & Sam Schulhofer‐Wohl, 2017. "Understanding The Long‐Run Decline In Interstate Migration," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 58(1), pages 57-94, February.
    12. Oswald Andrew J., 1996. "A Conjecture on the Explanation for High Unemployment in the Industrialized Nations : Part I," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 475, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    13. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Lawrence F. Katz, 1992. "Regional Evolutions," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1), pages 1-76.
    14. Vincent Sterk, 2011. "Home Equity, Mobility, and Macroeconomic Fluctuations," 2011 Meeting Papers 117, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Quigley, John M, 1987. "Interest Rate Variations, Mortgage Prepayments and Household Mobility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(4), pages 636-643, November.
    16. Daniel Aaronson & Jonathan Davis, 2011. "How much has house lock affected labor mobility and the unemployment rate?," Chicago Fed Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Sep.
    17. Hernan Winkler, 2011. "The Effect of Homeownership on Geographic Mobility and Labor Market Outcomes," 2011 Meeting Papers 196, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Engelhardt, Gary V., 2003. "Nominal loss aversion, housing equity constraints, and household mobility: evidence from the United States," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 171-195, January.
    19. Coulson, N. Edward & Grieco, Paul L.E., 2013. "Mobility and mortgages: Evidence from the PSID," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 1-7.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meekes, Jordy & Hassink, Wolter, 2017. "The Role of the Housing Market in Workers' Resilience to Job Displacement after Firm Bankruptcy," IZA Discussion Papers 10894, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Ray Calnan & Gary Painter, 2017. "The response of Latino immigrants to the Great Recession: Occupational and residential (im)mobility," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(11), pages 2561-2591, August.
    3. Meekes, Jordy & Hassink, Wolter H.J., 2019. "The role of the housing market in workers′ resilience to job displacement after firm bankruptcy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 41-65.
    4. Greenaway-McGrevy, Ryan & Hood, Kyle K., 2016. "Worker migration or job creation? Persistent shocks and regional recoveries," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 1-16.
    5. Luisa Alamá-Sabater & Yolanda de Llanos & Miguel Ángel Márquez & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2023. "Evaluating the spatial mismatch between population and factor endowments: The case of the European Union," Working Papers 2023/06, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    6. Piazzesi, M. & Schneider, M., 2016. "Housing and Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1547-1640, Elsevier.
    7. Brown, Jennifer & Matsa, David A., 2020. "Locked in by leverage: Job search during the housing crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(3), pages 623-648.
    8. Nathan Seltzer, 2019. "Beyond the Great Recession: Labor Market Polarization and Ongoing Fertility Decline in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(4), pages 1463-1493, August.

    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. Valletta, Robert G., 2013. "House lock and structural unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 86-97.
    2. Botsch, Matthew J. & Morris, Stephen D., 2021. "Job loss risk, expected mobility, and home ownership," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    3. Jesse Bricker & Brian Bucks, 2013. "Household mobility over the Great Recession: evidence from the U.S. 2007-09 Survey of Consumer Finances panel," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2013-53, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Brown, Jennifer & Matsa, David A., 2020. "Locked in by leverage: Job search during the housing crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(3), pages 623-648.
    5. Bricker, Jesse & Bucks, Brian, 2016. "Negative home equity, economic insecurity, and household mobility over the Great Recession," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 1-12.
    6. Andrea Morescalchi, 2016. "The Puzzle Of Job Search And Housing Tenure: A Reconciliation Of Theory And Empirical Evidence," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 288-312, March.
    7. Foote, Andrew, 2016. "The effects of negative house price changes on migration: Evidence across U.S. housing downturns," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 292-299.
    8. Bloze, Gintautas & Skak, Morten, 2016. "Housing equity, residential mobility and commuting," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 156-165.
    9. Yuliya Demyanyk & Dmytro Hryshko & María Jose Luengo-Prado & Bent E. Sørensen, 2017. "Moving to a Job: The Role of Home Equity, Debt, and Access to Credit," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 149-181, April.
    10. Modestino, Alicia Sasser & Dennett, Julia, 2013. "Are American homeowners locked into their houses? The impact of housing market conditions on state-to-state migration," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 322-337.
    11. Chan, Sewin & Haughwout, Andrew & Tracy, Joseph, 2015. "How Mortgage Finance Affects the Urban Landscape," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 987-1045, Elsevier.
    12. Yuliya Demyanyk & Dmytro Hryshko & Maria Jose Luengo-Prado & Bent E. Sorensen, 2016. "Moving to a new job: the role of home equity, debt, and access to credit," Working Papers 16-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    13. Fernando Ferreira & Joseph Gyourko & Joseph Tracy, 2012. "Housing busts and household mobility: an update," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 18(Nov), pages 1-15.
    14. Dickens William T. & Triest Robert K., 2012. "Potential Effects of the Great Recession on the U.S. Labor Market," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-41, October.
    15. Andersson, Fredrik & Mayock, Tom, 2014. "How does home equity affect mobility?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 23-39.
    16. Fatih Karahan & Serena Rhee, 2014. "Population aging, migration spillovers, and the decline in interstate migration," Staff Reports 699, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    17. Sander van Veldhuizen & Bart Voogt & Benedikt Vogt & Andrea Morescalchi, 2017. "Negative home equity and job mobility," CPB Discussion Paper 345, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    18. Jia, Ning & Molloy, Raven & Smith, Christopher L. & Wozniak, Abigail, 2022. "The Economics of Internal Migration: Advances and Policy Questions," IZA Discussion Papers 15047, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. William T. Dickens & Robert K. Triest, 2012. "Potential effects of the Great Recession on the U.S. labor market," Working Papers 12-9, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    20. Yagan, Danny, 2016. "The Enduring Employment Impact of Your Great Recession Location," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt12d0w9bs, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mobility; Unemploymentl; Great Recession; Geographical Mismatch; Stock-flow equations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • 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

    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:red:issued:12-205. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.