Virág Ilyés, István Boza, László Lőrincz, Rikard H. Eriksson
The aim of this article is to analyze the contribution of social ties to moving to high-opportunity locations and assess whether their effect is more pronounced for low-income individuals as a compensation for economic resources. This is done by utilizing Swedish administrative data and by focusing on a wide range of relationships (observed directly or inferred from the data): close and distant family ties, former co-workers and university peers. For estimating the effect of social ties, we use linear probability models, where observed migration is regressed on individual-specific and target-specific characteristics. To account for the nonrandom sorting of movers between locations, we apply sending municipality–target municipality–occupation fixed effects. Our results suggest that there is a positive relationship between migration and the presence of links at given targets for all the examined contact types. The effects are even stronger if the targets are hard-to-reach municipalities (located in Stockholm County or a municipality with higher housing prices). We also demonstrate that, when moving to such opportunity-rich areas, ties to former co-workers and university peers are even more essential assets for those with limited resources. Furthermore, we show that direct help with housing through contacts is an existing factor that contributes to the effect of social networks on residential mobility. The results reinforce the idea that social ties may be of great help in reducing barriers to mobility and can be used to compensate for limited economic resources. We demonstrate the validity of our fixed-effect estimation strategy using a placebo contact approach.
{"title":"How to enter high-opportunity places? The role of social contacts for residential mobility","authors":"Virág Ilyés, István Boza, László Lőrincz, Rikard H. Eriksson","doi":"10.1093/jeg/lbac019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbac019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The aim of this article is to analyze the contribution of social ties to moving to high-opportunity locations and assess whether their effect is more pronounced for low-income individuals as a compensation for economic resources. This is done by utilizing Swedish administrative data and by focusing on a wide range of relationships (observed directly or inferred from the data): close and distant family ties, former co-workers and university peers. For estimating the effect of social ties, we use linear probability models, where observed migration is regressed on individual-specific and target-specific characteristics. To account for the nonrandom sorting of movers between locations, we apply sending municipality–target municipality–occupation fixed effects. Our results suggest that there is a positive relationship between migration and the presence of links at given targets for all the examined contact types. The effects are even stronger if the targets are hard-to-reach municipalities (located in Stockholm County or a municipality with higher housing prices). We also demonstrate that, when moving to such opportunity-rich areas, ties to former co-workers and university peers are even more essential assets for those with limited resources. Furthermore, we show that direct help with housing through contacts is an existing factor that contributes to the effect of social networks on residential mobility. The results reinforce the idea that social ties may be of great help in reducing barriers to mobility and can be used to compensate for limited economic resources. We demonstrate the validity of our fixed-effect estimation strategy using a placebo contact approach.","PeriodicalId":48251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2022-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43392945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We estimate the causal impact of wage variations on commuting distance of workers. We test whether higher wages across years lead workers to live further away from their working place. We use employer–employee data for the French Ile-de-France region (surrounding Paris), from 2003 to 2008, and we deal with the endogenous relation between income and commuting using an instrumental variable strategy. We estimate that increases in wages coming from exogenous exposure to trade activities lead workers to increase their commuting distance and to settle closer to the city of Paris historical center. Our results cast novel insights upon the causal mechanisms from wage to spatial allocation of workers.
{"title":"Wage variations and commuting distance","authors":"E. Aboulkacem, Clément Nedoncelle","doi":"10.1093/jeg/lbac014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbac014","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We estimate the causal impact of wage variations on commuting distance of workers. We test whether higher wages across years lead workers to live further away from their working place. We use employer–employee data for the French Ile-de-France region (surrounding Paris), from 2003 to 2008, and we deal with the endogenous relation between income and commuting using an instrumental variable strategy. We estimate that increases in wages coming from exogenous exposure to trade activities lead workers to increase their commuting distance and to settle closer to the city of Paris historical center. Our results cast novel insights upon the causal mechanisms from wage to spatial allocation of workers.","PeriodicalId":48251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2022-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48971243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to: Urban bias, migration control and rural land policy: the case of Hukou in China","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jeg/lbac018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbac018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2022-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46320606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
J. McHale, J. Harold, Jen-Chung Mei, Akhil Sasidharan, Anil Yadav
There is increasing interest among policymakers in small open economies in the use of star-scientist recruitment policies to catalyse the development of local clusters in targeted research areas. We use Scopus to assemble a dataset on over 1.4 million publications and subsequent citations for Denmark, Ireland and New Zealand from 1990 to 2017. An event-study model is used to estimate the dynamic effects of a star arrival on quality-adjusted research output at both the department and matched individual incumbent levels. Star arrivals are associated with statistically significant increases in department output (excluding the output of the star) of between 12% and 25% after 4 years. At the incumbent level, star arrivals lead to an approximately 5% increase in individual output, with substantially larger increases for incumbents who co-author with the star.
{"title":"Stars as catalysts: an event-study analysis of the impact of star-scientist recruitment on local research performance in a small open economy","authors":"J. McHale, J. Harold, Jen-Chung Mei, Akhil Sasidharan, Anil Yadav","doi":"10.1093/jeg/lbac016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbac016","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 There is increasing interest among policymakers in small open economies in the use of star-scientist recruitment policies to catalyse the development of local clusters in targeted research areas. We use Scopus to assemble a dataset on over 1.4 million publications and subsequent citations for Denmark, Ireland and New Zealand from 1990 to 2017. An event-study model is used to estimate the dynamic effects of a star arrival on quality-adjusted research output at both the department and matched individual incumbent levels. Star arrivals are associated with statistically significant increases in department output (excluding the output of the star) of between 12% and 25% after 4 years. At the incumbent level, star arrivals lead to an approximately 5% increase in individual output, with substantially larger increases for incumbents who co-author with the star.","PeriodicalId":48251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2022-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43513998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract We investigate the link between the spatial concentration of firms in large, central metropolitans (i.e. urban agglomeration) and the cost of public corporate debt. Looking at bond issues over the period 1985–2014, we find that bonds issued by companies headquartered in urban agglomerates have lower at-issue yield spreads than bonds issued by firms based in remote, sparsely populated areas. Measures of the count of institutional bondholders in a firm’s vicinity confirm that the spatial cross-sectional variation in bond spreads is driven by the proximity of metropolitan firms to large concentrations of institutional investors. Our results are robust to controls for firm productivity and governance, analyst following, and exogenous shocks to institutional investor attention. The effect of headquarters location on bond spreads is especially pronounced for more difficult to value, speculative-grade bonds, bonds issued by smaller, less visible firms and bonds issued without protective covenants. Overall, we provide evidence that the geographical distribution of firms and investors generates a corresponding distribution of value-relevant, firm-level information that affects its cost of capital.
{"title":"The geography of information: evidence from the public debt market","authors":"Bill Francis,Iftekhar Hasan,Maya Waisman","doi":"10.1093/jeg/lbac002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbac002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We investigate the link between the spatial concentration of firms in large, central metropolitans (i.e. urban agglomeration) and the cost of public corporate debt. Looking at bond issues over the period 1985–2014, we find that bonds issued by companies headquartered in urban agglomerates have lower at-issue yield spreads than bonds issued by firms based in remote, sparsely populated areas. Measures of the count of institutional bondholders in a firm’s vicinity confirm that the spatial cross-sectional variation in bond spreads is driven by the proximity of metropolitan firms to large concentrations of institutional investors. Our results are robust to controls for firm productivity and governance, analyst following, and exogenous shocks to institutional investor attention. The effect of headquarters location on bond spreads is especially pronounced for more difficult to value, speculative-grade bonds, bonds issued by smaller, less visible firms and bonds issued without protective covenants. Overall, we provide evidence that the geographical distribution of firms and investors generates a corresponding distribution of value-relevant, firm-level information that affects its cost of capital.","PeriodicalId":48251,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Geography","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2022-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138529709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}