In a number of papers A.J. Oswald (1996, 1997) argues that high rates of home ownership may imply inferior labour market outcomes. This paper tests the Oswald hypothesis in a panel of 42 Belgian districts since the 1970s. The use of data going back to 1970 allows us to embed the Oswald...

Why are better educated and more risk-friendly persons more mobile across regions? To answer this question, we use micro data on internal migrants from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) 2000-2006 and merge this information with a unique proxy for region-pair-specific cultural distances...

We investigate whether time-persistent cultural borders impede economic exchange across regions of the same country. To measure cultural differences we evaluate, for the first time in economics, linguistic micro-data about phonological and grammatical features of German dialects. These data are...

Ever since Sjaastad (1962), researchers have struggled to quantify the psychic cost of migration. We monetize psychic cost as the wage premium for moving to a culturally different location. We combine administrative social security panel data with a proxy for cultural difference based on...

We investigate whether time-persistent cultural borders impede economic exchange across regions of the same country. To measure cultural differences we evaluate, for the first time in economics, linguistic micro-data about phonological and grammatical features of German dialects. These data are...

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the past four decades of empirical research on the relationship between internal migration and regional variation in the generosity of Canada’s unemployment insurance system. It has long been argued that because the Canadian insurance system is...

We analyse whether, when and how local office-holders respond to the personal, economic incentives embedded in exogenously imposed population thresholds leading to an increased number and/or remuneration of local office-holders. Using data from all 589 Belgian municipalities over the period...

We propose a theory of skill mobility across cities. It predicts the well documented city size-wage premium: the wage distribution in large cities first-order stochastically dominates that in small cities. Yet, because this premium is reflected in higher house prices, this does not necessarily...

In 2009, Russia introduced a reform that changed the admissions process in all universities. Before 2009, admission decisions were based on institution-specific entry exams; the reform required universities to determine their decisions on the results of a national high-school test known as...