The Wage Dynamics of Internal Migration within the United States

Using an extended panel of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), this study demonstrates that young interstate migrants receive significant positive returns to geographic mobility. Pecuniary returns generally accumulate over a five year period following migration, during which migrants experience superior wage growth vis-a-vis non-migrants. Fixed-effects estimates suggest that migrants collect a post-migration wage premium of nearly 5 percent. Because fixed-effects estimation accounts for correlation between migration and unobservable individual-specific characteristics (typically referred to as "ability"), the positive effect of migration on wages can not be explained by the hypothesis that the migrant sample are drawn from the upper tail of the ability distribution.Geographic Mobility; Migrant; Migration; Mobility; Wage

US State Economic Freedom and the Labor Supply of Young Workers

Abstract Matching panel data drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to the state-level index of economic freedom published in Economic Freedom of North America 2010, this study examines the empirical relationship between the degree of economic freedom in US states and individual labor supply. OLS estimation identifies a positive correlation between economic freedom and annual hours worked. However, this relationship disappears when the model accounts for time-invariant person-specific fixed effects. Although states with higher degrees of economic freedom appear to generate higher productivity and therefore labor earnings potential among workers, most workers do not increase their hours of work in response

A Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of State Economic Freedom on Individual Wages

Matching panel data drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to the state-level index of economic freedom published in Economic Freedom of North America 2010, this study establishes an empirical relationship between wages at the individual level and the degree of state economic freedom. In OLS models, a one standard deviation improvement in the state economic freedom score is found to increase wages by 2.5 percent. Models that con-trol for both person-specific and state-level fixed effects reveal a wage increase of more than 8 percent. Significant variation in wage gains is found across the different areas used to con-struct the economic freedom measure as well as across broad worker characteristics like race and schooling level

Do Neighborhoods Affect Hours Worked? Evidence from Longitudinal Data

Using a confidential version of the NLSY79, we estimate large effects of neighborhood social characteristics and job proximity on labor market activity. A variety of neighborhood social characteristics are associated with less market work. Social characteristics have nonlinear effects, with the greatest impact in the worst neighborhoods. Social characteristics are also more important for less-educated workers. Exploiting the panel aspects of our data, we find that estimates that do not account for neighborhood selection on the basis of time-invariant and time-varying unobserved individual characteristics substantially overstate the social effects of neighborhoods but understate the effects of job access.

Migration, Job Change, and Wage Growth: A New Perspective on the Pecuniary Return to Geographic Mobility

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, this study examines the pattern of early career job mobility and migration in a sample of young male workers. Primary interest lies in the between-job wage change accompanying job transitions as well as the extended time-profile of migrant earnings. When the sample of job transitions is partitioned by education level, contemporaneous returns are found only for workers with twelve or less years of completed schooling. In contrast, highly educated workers demonstrate significant extended returns to migration with the bulk of pecuniary rewards accruing with a lag of nearly two years. Copyright Blackwell Publishing, Inc. 2003