This paper estimates the effects of regional mobility on individual employment prospects and wages, exploiting rich German social security data spanning over 30 years. Our focus is on unemployed workers with strong labor force attachment who search for employment after being exposed to a mass layoff. By that we concentrate on a group of individuals who are plausibly searching for employment for exogenous reasons. Comparing individuals who stay in the local labor market to movers, we find that earnings are around 20 percent higher for movers three years after the layoff. Large differences in employment rates and earnings persist even 10 years after the layoff. In contrast, there are only small effects of regional mobility on wages conditional on finding employment. |
