Calendar detail

Speaker:
Lennart Goldemann (University of Konstanz) / Juho Alasalmi (University of Konstanz)

11:45     Lennart Goldemann: "The long-term effects of coal in the U.S."

12:30    Juho Alasalmi: "Selection of Job-to-job Migrant on Match Quality"

Abstract: Many migrants move after having found a job in their destination. Migration choices are then not based on source and destination location wage distributions but on realizations from these distributions. I extend the Roy-Borjas migrant selection model with job search, wage dispersion, and observability of source and destination wages prior to relocation choice. This model of selection of job-to-job migrants, while nesting the benchmark results on selection on skills, predicts negative selection on source and positive selection on destination job match quality. Using high-quality administrative data, I compare selection on residual wages between job-to-job migrants and workers who similarly contract a job outside their location of residence but choose to commute. Mobility costs amplify selection, and comparing job-to-job migrants and commuters, two groups similar in their unobservable skills facing different costs of mobility, identifies migrants' residual selection consistent with selection on job match quality as predicted by the theory.