Volume 19, Number 4 (Fall) 1984
Goss, Ernst P., and Niles C. Schoening. 1984. “Search Time, Unemployment, and the Migration Decision.” Journal of Human Resources 19(4):570-579.
Several studies have shown that the unemployed in distressed regions of the U.S. have been reluctant to move to areas of greater employment opportunities. By establishing a negative correlation between weeks of job search and the probability of migration, this study is able to provide a partial explanation for the lack of a positive and statistically significant relationship between out-migration rates and the unemployment rate in the local labor market. It is our contention here that those regions that have experienced long periods of high unemployment possess a long-term unemployed population that is less likely to undertake a geographic move.
The authors are, respectively, Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems and Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The authors wish to thank Henry Herzog, Chris Paul, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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