Regional Labor Market Adjustment in the United States: Trend and Cycle
研究了美国过去四十年劳动力流动的演变，发现州际流动性自1990年代初下降，且在经济衰退时流动性更强，对区域经济政策制定者有用。
We present new evidence on the evolution of labor mobility in the United States over the past four decades. Building on the seminal methodology by Blanchard and Katz (1992), combined with multiple sources of regional population and migration data, we show that interstate mobility in response to relative labor demand conditions is not as high as previously established and has been weakening since the early 1990s. In addition, we find that mobility is countercyclical: net migration across regions responds more strongly to spatial disparities in recessions than in normal times. While the declining trend in mobility has been driven by weaker out-migration from states experiencing negative relative shocks, the mobility surge in recessions is mostly accounted for by temporarily stronger in-migration to better-performing states.