Economic Influences on Migration Decisions of Young Workers

与其他国家的数据相比，美国人从一个地区搬到另一个地区的程度是值得注意的。这项研究从年轻人的角度分析了收入地理差异的相关性，年轻人必须决定是接受目前所在地区的机会，还是搬到其他地方寻找更好的机会。事实上，工资存在很大的地域差异，尽管预计大量移民流动可能会消除这种差异。在福利方面也存在很大的地域差异，政策制定者表示担心，这些差异可能会在一些地方产生“福利磁铁”。因此，有理由相信，预期收入的差异可能有助于解释移民决定。更详细地了解收入和移徙之间的关系将有助于许多应用。例如，它将有助于更好地预测地区收入和贫困差异可能会以多快的速度消失；它将极大地提高我们分析福利制度变化的影响的能力。我们建立了个人移民决策的经济模型，并利用国家青年纵向调查(NLSY)的数据，将其与个人历史相适应。移民的个人决定被建模为一个求职问题，在这个问题中，福利或其他替代收入来源作为底线，确保工人不会出现糟糕的求职结果。工人只能通过参观一个地点来领取工资，从而产生搬家成本。不同地区的区别在于平均工资、便利设施价值和其他收入来源方面的已知差异。工人在某个家庭地点开始生命周期，并在安顿下来之前选择最优的搬家顺序。有一个两维的地点排名，事前：一些地方工资高，另一些地方有诱人的后备选择(两者都根据便利设施价值进行了调整)。这个决策问题太复杂了，不能用解析的方法来解决，所以我们使用一个可以用数值求解的离散近似来进行处理。关于福利的国家数据和关于工资的人口普查数据被用来估计描述个人可供选择的菜单的参数，并选择偏好参数值，以便最大限度地增加在NLSY数据中看到的移徙决定的可能性。该项目的结果将是对迁徙行为的结构性解释，可以用来说明如果同样的人面临不同的选择菜单会发生什么。特别是，结果将被用来评估移民决定在多大程度上受到地理工资差异和福利磁铁的推动。初步的经验结果表明，一个有用的福利移徙结构模型已经触手可及，而且很可能可以加以扩展，以更广泛地描述年轻工人的移徙决策。这样就有可能分析对数据中没有看到的情况的行为反应，比如影响劳动力市场的新政策的实施。

The extent to which Americans move from one part of the country to another is remarkable when compared with data for other countries. The research analyzes the relevance of geographical differences in income from the point of view of young people who must decide whether to accept the opportunities available in their current location, or move elsewhere in search of better opportunities. There are in fact large geographical differences in wages, despite large migration flows that might be expected to eliminate such differences. There are also large geographical differences in welfare benefits, and policy-makers express concerns that these differences might create "welfare magnets" in some locations. Thus there is reason to believe that differences in expected income may help explain migration decisions. A more detailed understanding of the relationship between income and migration will be useful in many applications. For example, it will lead toward better forecasts of how quickly regional differences in income and poverty are likely to dissipate; and it will greatly improve our ability to analyze the effects of changes in the welfare system. We build an economic model of individual migration decisions, and we fit it to individual histories, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Individual decisions to migrate are modeled as a job search problem in which welfare benefits or other alternative sources of income act as a floor, insuring workers against bad job search outcomes. A worker can draw a wage only by visiting a location, thereby incurring a moving cost. Locations are distinguished by known differences in mean wages, amenity values and alternative income sources. A worker starts the life-cycle in some home location and chooses an optimal sequence of moves before settling down. There is a two-dimensional ranking of locations, ex ante: some places have high wages, and others have attractive fallback options (both adjusted for amenity values). The decision problem is too complicated to be solved analytically, so we proceed by using a discrete approximation that can be solved numerically. State data on welfare benefits and Census data on wages are used to estimate the parameters describing the menu of choices available to individuals, and preference parameter values are selected so as to maximize the likelihood of the migration decisions seen in the NLSY data. The result of the project will be a structural explanation of migration behavior, that can be used to say what would have happened if the same individuals had been confronted with a different menu of choices. In particular, the results will be used to assess the extent to which migration decisions are driven by geographical wage differentials, and by welfare magnets. Preliminary empirical results indicate that a useful structural model of welfare migration is within reach, and it is likely that this can be extended to obtain a broader characterization of migration decisions of young workers. It will than be possible to analyze behavioral responses to situations not seen in the data, such as the implementation of new policies affecting the labor market.