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Opportunity to Move: Macroeconomic Effects of Relocation Subsidies

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  • Parkhomenko, Andrii

Abstract

The unemployment insurance system in the U.S. does not provide incentives to look for jobs outside local labor markets. In this paper I introduce relocation subsidies as a supplement to unemployment benefits, and study their effects on unemployment, productivity and welfare. I build a job search model with heterogeneous workers and multiple locations, in which migration is impeded by moving expenses, cross-location search frictions, borrowing constraints, and utility costs. I calibrate the model to the U.S. economy, and then introduce a subsidy that reimburses a part of the moving expenses to the unemployed and is financed by labor income taxes. During the Great Recession, a relocation subsidy that pays half of the moving expenses would lower unemployment rate by 0.36 percentage points (or 4.8%) and increase productivity by 1%. Importantly, the subsidies cost nothing to the taxpayer: the additional spending on the subsidies is offset by the reduction in spending on unemployment benefits. Unemployment insurance which combines unemployment benefits with relocation subsidies appears to be more effective than the insurance based on the benefits only.

Suggested Citation

  • Parkhomenko, Andrii, 2016. "Opportunity to Move: Macroeconomic Effects of Relocation Subsidies," MPRA Paper 75256, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:75256
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    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/75256/3/MPRA_paper_75256.pdf
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    1. Opportunity to Move: Macroeconomic Effects of Relocation Subsidies
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2016-12-15 00:07:39

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    Cited by:

    1. Andrii Parkhomenko, 2018. "The Rise of Housing Supply Regulation in the US: Local Causes and Aggregate Implications," 2018 Meeting Papers 275, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    unemployment insurance; relocation subsidies and vouchers; local labor markets; moving costs; geographic mobility; internal migration;
    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
    • 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
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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