This paper examines the determinants of internal migration in a context where wages tend to be rather inflexible at a regional scale so that regional labor demand shocks have a prolonged impact on employment rates. Regional income differentials, then, reflect both regional pay and employment...

This paper examines internal migration from a lifetime perspective using unique data on detailed residential biographies of individuals born in Germany between 1944 and 1986. We first describe life-cycle patterns of internal mobility and potential differences across space, time, and...

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...

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...

In 1997 GDP per capita in East Germany was 57% of that of West Germany, wage rates were 75% of western levels, and the unemployment rate was at least double the western rate of 7.8%. One would expect that if capital flows and trade in goods failed to bring convergence, labor flows would respond,...

Little is known about the individual location behavior of self-employed entrepreneurs. This paper investigates the geographical mobility behavior of self-employed entrepreneurs, as compared to employees, thereby shedding new light onto the place embeddedness of self-employment. It examines...

This paper assesses a recent prediction of the theoretical migration literature, according to which migration may be driven by a desire to avoid social humiliation rising from occupational stigma. To this end, we study the residential mobility of workers in occupations with relatively low...

Human capital theory predicts pecuniary returns to regional migration, but also positive self-selection of migrants. Therefore, when estimating the causal effect of migration one has to take care of potential self-selection. Several authors recommend using fixed effects models thereby...

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...