IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedrwp/19-04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On Regional Borrowing, Default, and Migration

Author

Listed:
  • Grey Gordon
  • Pablo Guerron-Quintana

Abstract

Migration plays a key role in city finances with every new entrant reducing debt per person and every exit increasing it. We study the interactions between regional borrowing, migration, and default from empirical, theoretical, and quantitative perspectives. Empirically, we document that in-migration rates are positively correlated with deficits, that many cities appear to be at or near state-imposed borrowing limits, and that defaults can occur after booms or busts in productivity and population. Theoretically, we show that migration creates an externality that results in over-borrowing, and our quantitative model is able to rationalize many features of the data because of it. Counterfactuals reveal (1) Detroit should have deleveraged in the financial crisis to avoid default; (2) a return to the high-interest rate environment prevailing in the 1990s has only small long-run effects on city finances; and (3) anticipated bailouts double default rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Grey Gordon & Pablo Guerron-Quintana, 2019. "On Regional Borrowing, Default, and Migration," Working Paper 19-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedrwp:19-04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.richmondfed.org/-/media/richmondfedorg/publications/research/working_papers/2019/wp19-04.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 416-416.
    2. Hatchondo, Juan Carlos & Martinez, Leonardo, 2009. "Long-duration bonds and sovereign defaults," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 117-125, September.
    3. John Kennan & James R. Walker, 2011. "The Effect of Expected Income on Individual Migration Decisions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(1), pages 211-251, January.
    4. Neil Bruce, 1995. "A Fiscal Federalism Analysis of Debt Policies by Sovereign Regional Governments," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(s1), pages 195-206, November.
    5. Emmanuel Farhi & Ivan Werning, 2014. "Labor Mobility Within Currency Unions," Working Paper 165206, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    6. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2012. "Maturity, Indebtedness, and Default Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2674-2699, October.
    7. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    8. Satyajit Chatterjee & Dean Corbae & Makoto Nakajima & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2007. "A Quantitative Theory of Unsecured Consumer Credit with Risk of Default," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(6), pages 1525-1589, November.
    9. Enrico Moretti & Daniel J. Wilson, 2017. "The Effect of State Taxes on the Geographical Location of Top Earners: Evidence from Star Scientists," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(7), pages 1858-1903, July.
    10. Schultz, Christian & Sjostrom, Tomas, 2001. "Local public goods, debt and migration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 313-337, May.
    11. Jonah B. Gelbach, 2004. "Migration, the Life Cycle, and State Benefits: How Low Is the Bottom?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 1091-1130, October.
    12. Enrique G. Mendoza & Vivian Z. Yue, 2012. "A General Equilibrium Model of Sovereign Default and Business Cycles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 127(2), pages 889-946.
    13. John Kennan, 2016. "Open Borders in the European Union and Beyond: Migration Flows and Labor Market Implications," 2016 Meeting Papers 1359, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    14. Aguiar, M. & Chatterjee, S. & Cole, H. & Stangebye, Z., 2016. "Quantitative Models of Sovereign Debt Crises," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.),Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1697-1755, Elsevier.
    15. Roc Armenter & Francesc Ortega, 2010. "Credible Redistributive Policies and Migration across US States," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(2), pages 403-423, April.
    16. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Pierre-Olivier Weill, 2010. "Why Has House Price Dispersion Gone Up?," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 77(4), pages 1567-1606.
    17. Grey Gordon, 2020. "Efficient VAR Discretization," Working Paper 20-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    18. Coen-Pirani, Daniele, 2010. "Understanding gross worker flows across U.S. states," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(7), pages 769-784, October.
    19. Cristina Arellano, 2008. "Default Risk and Income Fluctuations in Emerging Economies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 690-712, June.
    20. Wilson, John Douglas, 1999. "Theories of Tax Competition," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(2), pages 269-304, June.
    21. Weingast, Barry R., 2009. "Second generation fiscal federalism: The implications of fiscal incentives," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 279-293, May.
    22. Capeci, John, 1994. "Local fiscal policies, default risk, and municipal borrowing costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 73-89, January.
    23. Wilson, John Douglas, 1999. "Theories of Tax Competition," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 52(n. 2), pages 269-304, June.
    24. Epple, Dennis & Spatt, Chester, 1986. "State restrictions on local debt : Their role in preventing default," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 199-221, March.
    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. Alessandria, George & Bai, Yan & Deng, Minjie, 2020. "Migration and sovereign default risk," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-22.
    2. Prein, Timm, 2019. "Persistent Unemployment, Sovereign Debt Crises, and the Impact of Haircuts," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203654, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Si Guo & Yun Pei & Zoe Xie, 2018. "Decentralization and Overborrowing in a Fiscal Federation," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2018-9, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    4. George Alessandria & Minjie Deng & Yan Bai, 2019. "Sovereign Default Risk and Migration," 2019 Meeting Papers 1085, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Guerron-Quintana, Pablo A., 2020. "“Migration and sovereign default risk” a comment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 23-27.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    migration; cities;

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • R51 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Finance in Urban and Rural Economies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedrwp:19-04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/frbrius.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.