We describe an unsupervised method for delineating functional labour market areas (LMAs) in national commuting networks. Our method uses the Louvain algorithm, which we extend to support top-down hierarchical LMA classification and estimable classification stabilities. We demonstrate our method...

I study whether human capital investments are based on local rather than national demand, and whether this is explained by migration or information frictions. I analyze three sector-specific shocks with differential local effects, including the dot-com crash, the 2008 financial crisis, and a...

This paper explores the geographic overlap of trade and technology shocks across local labor markets in the United States. Regional exposure to technological change, as measured by specialization in routine task-intensive production and clerical occupations, is largely uncorrelated with regional...

This paper investigates the effects of labour migration and openness to trade on regional skill endowments across the European Union at a time of increased economic integration. Using regional data from Eurostat's Regio database and the open web source Openflight for the period 1998-2010 we test...

A number of studies have examined the impact of local labor market conditions on school dropout. However, none of them have considered the role of the industry structure. We construct data for a panel of Spanish regions and identify the effect of local labor markets using a variation of the...

Exogenous shocks often impact a local labor market more than at the national level. This study improves upon the standard Difference in Difference (DD) approach by examining exogenous shocks using a Generalized Difference in Difference (GDD) econometric approach that identifies the effects of...

Immigration is a phenomenon of growing significance in many countries. Increasing social tensions are leading to political pressure to limit a further influx of foreign-born persons on the grounds that the absorption capacity of host countries has been exceeded and social cohesion threatened....

We examine the correlates of reported hiring difficulties at the firm level using linked employer-employee and panel survey data over 2005-2011, focussing on the relative influence of firm-level characteristics, persistence, the business cycle and local labour market liquidity. At both the...

It is widely believed that unaffordable housing could drive businesses away and thus impede job growth. However, there is little evidence to support this view. This paper presents a simple model to clarify how housing affordability is linked to employment growth and why unaffordable housing...

This paper adopts a generalized-difference-in-difference (GDD) technique outlined in Ariel R. Belasen and Solomon W. Polachek (IZA Discussion Paper #2976) to examine the impact of hurricanes on the labor market. We find that earnings of the average worker in a Florida county rises over 4% within...