Commuting, Migration and Local Employment Elasticities / Ferdinando Monte, Stephen J. Redding, Esteban Rossi-Hansberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Monte, Ferdinando.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Redding, Stephen J.

Rossi-Hansberg, Esteban.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w21706.

NBER working paper series no. w21706

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2015.

Summary:

To understand the elasticity of employment to local labor demand shocks, we develop a quantitative general equilibrium model that incorporates spatial linkages in goods markets (trade) and factor markets (commuting and migration). We show that local employment elasticities differ substantially across U.S. counties and commuting zones in ways that are not well explained by standard empirical controls but are captured by commuting measures. We provide independent evidence for these predictions from million dollar plants and find that empirically-observed reductions in commuting costs generate welfare gains of around 3.3 percent and employment reallocations from -20 to 30 percent.

Notes:

Print version record

November 2015.