The paper surveys the theoretical and empirical literature on regional unemployment during transition in Central and Eastern Europe. The focus is on Optimal Speed of Transition (OST) models and on comparison of them with the neoclassical tradition. In the typical neoclassical models, spatial...

We show how small initial wealth differences between low skilled black and white workers can generate large differences in their labor-market outcomes. This even occurs in the absence of a taste for discrimination against blacks or exogenous differences in the distance to jobs. Because of the...

We assess how changes in youth cohort sizes effect employment rates in German labour market regions. Replicating the conventional approach, we estimate that a percentage increase in the youth share reduces regional employment rates by −0.2%. We challenge the assumption that cohort size effects...

This chapter examines the link between firm productivity and the population composition of the areas in which firms operate. We combine annual firm-level microdata on production, covering a large proportion of the New Zealand economy, with area-level workforce characteristics obtained from...

This paper aims to provide a frame of mind to understand the link between structural change and regional unemployment, and, based on it, to survey the most recent literature. An overly optimistic view on the ability of the adjustment mechanism to generate convergence in local unemployment rates...

This paper studies the overall and distributional effects of the green energy transition on local labor markets in the United States from 2005 to 2019. Utilizing exogenous solar and wind potentials derived from remote sensing data, we identify the causal impact of the expansion in solar and wind...

The rise of economic inequalities in advanced economies has been often linked with the growth of spatial inequalities within countries, yet there is limited comparative research that studies the relationship between national and subnational economic inequality. This paper presents the first...

We show how small initial wealth differences between low skilled black and white workers can generate large differences in their labor-market outcomes. This even occurs in the absence of a taste for discrimination against blacks or exogenous differences in the distance to jobs. Because of the...

Over long periods of human history, labor market equilibrium involved movements from low-wage areas to high-wage areas, a form of arbitrage under the implicit view that wage differentials corresponded to utility differentials. This “labor economics” view is likely to be viable as long as...

The paper discusses two approaches to spatial equilibrium in the labor market. The more traditional approach of labor economics assumes wage differentials represent arbitrageable differences in utility, with implications 1) that migration should be toward higher wage areas and 2) that migration...