Unraveling the Intrinsic Complexity of Regional Labor Markets

This book provides an accurate description of the functioning of urban–rural labor markets in advanced economies. Assessing functions and efficiency of regional and local labor markets is a vast, complex (and partly unexplored) topic, and addressing it comprehensively poses a daunting challenge to economics. Following a brief (theoretical) introduction on the mechanisms regulating it, we will proceed by presenting, through an extensive literature review, the intrinsic characteristics of labor markets in the major world economies. Starting from the main measures of efficiency, including labor force participation rates, and unemployment rates, the study outlines the dominant trends for United States and Japan in the last two decades. Subsequently, we will study the potential and welfare of these economies by observing trends in total factor productivity and real wages, and the consequent market inequality. We will conclude with some considerations on the productive structure and its evolution over time. After introducing the integration of European markets, we will repeat the same analysis described earlier for the European Union, considering it both in its entirety and in its regional peculiarities, emphasizing that—although a convergence process is underway—differences still persist at the level of individual countries. This will be followed by a comprehensive discussion on entrepreneurship and its fundamental role in the labor supply-demand equilibrium, capable of absorbing unemployment through the so-called ‘Schumpeter’ and ‘refugee’ effects. Subsequently, we will focus on describing the main differences in urban–rural markets, and the rebalancing role that the labor factor can assume in fragmented socioeconomic contexts. An empirical exercise was finally presented whose goal is to test whether living in a rural area implies a greater likelihood of becoming an entrepreneur, verifying the existence of a convergence mechanism of rural areas towards urban ones. We will finally delineate the necessary economic considerations, presenting insights for future research.