Change in the Concentration of Employment in Computer Services: Spatial Estimation at the U.S. Metro County Level

ABSTRACT This article models the concentration of computer services activity across the U.S. with factors that incorporate spatial relationships. Specifically, we enhance the standard home‐area study with an analysis that allows conditions in neighboring counties to affect the concentration of employment in the home county. We use county‐level data for metropolitan areas between 1990 and 1997. To measure change in employment concentration, we use the change in location quotients for SIC 737, which captures employment concentration changes caused by both the number of firms and the scale of their activity relative to the national average. After controlling for local demand for computer services, our results support the importance of the presence of a qualified labor supply, interindustry linkages, proximity to a major airport, and spatial processes in explaining changes in computer services employment concentration, finding little support for the influence of cost factors. Our enhanced model reveals interjurisdictional relationships among these metro counties that could not be captured with standard estimates by state, metropolitan statistical area (MSA), or county. Using counties within MSAs, therefore, provides more general results than case studies but still allows measurement of local interactions.     

Effects of the Housing Boom and Bust on U.S. Metro Employment

This paper examines the effects of the housing boom of the early 2000s on unemployment in U.S. metropolitan areas. A region's share of housing units built between 2000 and 2006 has no effect on unemployment prior to the start of the Great Recession, but the extent of a region's housing boom increases unemployment in over one‐half of the months analyzed during and immediately following it. Regression results based on a cluster analysis of metropolitan areas indicate that regions characterized by high growth rates of construction, retail, and hospitality employment during the early 2000s were hit particularly hard by the recession.     

Cities,Skills, and Inequality

ABSTRACT The surge in U.S. wage inequality over the past several decades is now commonly attributed to an increase in the returns paid to skill. Although theories differ with respect to why, specifically, this increase has come about, many agree that it is strongly tied to the increase in the relative supply of skilled (i.e., highly educated) workers in the U.S. labor market. A greater supply of skilled labor, for example, may have induced skill‐biased technological change or generated greater stratification of workers by skill across firms or jobs. Given that metropolitan areas in the U.S. have long possessed more educated populations than non‐metropolitan areas, these theories suggest that the rise in both the returns to skill and wage inequality should have been particularly pronounced in cities. Evidence from the U.S. Census over the period of 1950 to 1990 supports both implications.     

Cyclical and noncyclical unemployment differences among demographic groups

The objective of this study was to determine if 1) the full employment-unemployment rate, or natural unemployment rate, changed between 1954-79 differentially for various subgroups in the US population; 2) minimum wage laws and unemployment compensation impacted differentially on subgroups in the population; and 3) there were structural shifts in the determinants of unemployment and labor force participation rates among subgroups. The 6 subgroups investigated were white and nonwhite teenagers, white and nonwhite females, and white and nonwhite males. Trends and cycles in unemployment were analyzed using regression techniques and basic time series models, and structural changes in the unemployment rate were analyzed by using a technique developed by Brown, Durbin, and Evans to test for change in estimated regression coefficients. Results indicated that the natural unemployment rate in the US increased from 4.70% to 5.14% between 1959-79. This increase was due in part to the unemployment rate increases observed among different subgroups in the population, and expecially among teenagers. In 1979 the unemployment rates among teenagers were 13.6% for whites and 28.72% for nonwhites. Respective rates in 1979 for white and nonwhite adult females were 4.20% and 9.98%, and for white and nonwhite adult males they were 2.78% and 6.36%. Other findings were 1) increases in minimum wage had a positive impact on the nonwhite teenagers' jobless rates, no effect on the white teenager jobless rate, and a negative impact on the adult unemployment rate; 2) increased unemployment compensation was positively associated with higher jobless rates for adult males and nonwhite teenagers; 3) the jobless rate was not significantly related to changes between 1954-79 in the proportion of different age, sex, and race groups in the population; and 4) structural shifts in the determinants of unemployment were observed for secondary workers only. Tables provided the results of the regression analysis, estimates of unemployment rates, by race, sex, and age for 1959, 1969, and 1979, and labor force composition and employment rates by race, sex, and age for 1954 and 1981.     

Labor Market Dynamics During a Period of Structural Change: California inEarly 1990s

This paper contributes to the literature on labor market dynamics in four ways. First, unlike most of the existing literature, it uses the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). This panel survey, with a 32‐month window of observation, allows a more precise measure of employment flows than other data sources. It was found that one out of three workers experiences a job transition during the observation period. Second, it focuses on the state of California during an economic cycle. According to these estimates, the net decline in employment represents just 2.6 percent of all job rotations (separations offset by accessions), and gross job flows were as important during the downturn as they were during the economic expansion. Third, it estimates gross flows by sector, and finds significant variation in gross flows relative to employment across sectors of economic activity. Fourth, it examines the coexistence of cyclical and structural changes of California in the early 1990s. The results suggest a labor market link between structural changes and economic cycles.     

The Economic Status of Areas Surrounding Major U.S. Container Ports: Evidence and Policy Issues

ABSTRACT This article examines the current economic status of the areas surrounding major U.S. container ports. We define a “port district” as the geographic area within a 7.5‐mile radius of a port. Our sample includes the 10 largest container ports in the U.S. We find that when we compare port districts to their surrounding metropolitan areas, household unemployment and poverty rates are significantly higher in port districts. Thus, the same ports that serve as “economic engines” for the region and nation may be the cause of economic decline and deterioration in the immediate areas that surround them. This presents a challenge for policy makers who want to preserve the benefits of international trade while facing increasing opposition to port expansion by local communities.     

Understanding the Non‐Metropolitan—Metropolitan Digital Divide

Abstract A consistent gap exists between home Internet use in metropolitan areas and in non‐metropolitan areas in the U.S. This digital divide may stem from technology differences in home Internet connectivity. Alternatively, differences in education, income, and other household attributes may explain differences in metropolitan and non‐metropolitan area home Internet access. Effective programs to reduce the metropolitan–non‐metropolitan digital divide must be based on an understanding of the relative roles that technology and household characteristics play in determining differential Internet usage. The household Internet adoption decision is modeled using a logit estimation approach with data from the 2001 U.S. Current Population Survey Internet and Computer Use Supplement. A decomposition of separate metropolitan and non‐metropolitan area estimates shows that differences in household attributes, particularly education and income, account for 63 percent of the current metropolitan–non‐metropolitan digital divide. The result raises significant doubts that policies which focus solely on infrastructure and technology access will mitigate the current metropolitan–non‐metropolitan digital divide.     

Regulating informality: Worker centers and collective action in day-labor markets

Day-labor markets are characterized by chronic instability, low pay, and weak institutional protections against violations of labor standards. In the U.S., worker centers address these conditions through the operation of hiring halls that dispatch workers, set minimum wages, and redress wage theft. Surveys conducted in Seattle in 2012 and 2015 were used to evaluate wage rates, employment rates, and wage theft variables for workers at a worker center and those seeking employment at four informal hiring sites. Worker center members were found to have significantly higher wages, higher employment rates, and lower rates of wage theft than day laborers who search for employment in public spaces.     

Does a Rising Tide Lift All Metropolitan Boats? Assessing Poverty Dynamics by Metropolitan Size and County Type

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between U.S. metropolitan county employment growth and poverty. Differential job growth–poverty linkages are found across metropolitan size and type of county. Own‐county employment growth significantly reduces central‐county poverty in large metropolitan areas relative to suburban county poverty. Compared with larger metropolitan areas, broader metropolitan‐wide job growth has more poverty reducing benefits in medium and smaller metropolitan areas, suggesting fewer metropolitan‐wide job‐accessibility constraints. The results suggest that targeted place‐based efforts to spur job growth may help reduce poverty.     

Unemployment,Growth, and Trade Unions

This paper develops a two‐sector endogenous growth model with a dual labor market caused by the operation of trade unions. Trade unions strive for the extraction of rents from the growth generating imperfectly competitive primary sector. This union behavior results in a non‐competitive wage differential between the primary and secondary (perfectly competitive) sector. How the relationship between growth and unemployment depends on the institutional details of the labor market is analyzed. In general, growth and unemployment are intimately related for two reasons. Unemployment affects the scale of operation of the economy and thereby the growth rate. Growth affects inter‐temporal decisions of workers about where to allocate on the labor market once they are laid off, and thereby it affects equilibrium unemployment.     

Industrial Development Groups,Organizational Resources,and the Prospects for Effecting Growth in Local Economies

Using data from a survey of directors of not-for-profit industrial development groups in the United States and from a variety of secondary sources, we test the hypothesis that the presence of an active industrial development group was a significant factor in the economic growth of its service area over the 1977-to-1982 period. The data permit us to control for different levels of organizational resources among growth promotion groups as well as other traditional factors of local economic change in a regression analysis. While growth promotion groups are judged to be effective in terms of the number of jobs that are created or preserved relative to their direct expenditures of resources, neither their presence nor the levels of their organizational resources are significantly related to service area net employment change. The efforts of growth promotion groups are simply overwhelmed in importance by factors such as population size, metropolitan accessibility, location in a growth region, and manufacturing wage rates that characterize the respective service areas.     

Moonlighting in a High Growth Economy: Evidence from U.S. State‐Level Data

Despite the prevalence of multiple jobholding, there is relatively little research into its causes. Existing research has tested the predictions of standard labor models with micro data. Yet, there has been virtually no research into the relationship between moonlighting and structural differences in regional labor markets such as wages and employment growth. In this manner, this study examines the large differences in multiple jobholding rates across U.S. states. The findings indicate that multiple jobholding acts as a short‐term shock absorber to cyclical changes. However, in the long‐term, these effects dissipate, indicating that moonlighting plays a similar role as do changes in unemployment and labor‐force participation to regional labor market shocks. Conversely, multiple jobholding rates are inversely related to average weekly earnings. Thus, job growth accompanied by real wage (and productivity) growth may result in a decline in multiple jobholding, further exacerbating potential labor shortages. Other key factors found to influence multiple jobholding include occupational structure and education.     

Destination Choice of the Newly Arrived Immigrants to the U.S. from 2000 to 2005–2007: A Multivariate Explanation for Immigrants from Top Source Countries

Using the PUMS files of the 2000 U.S. Census and 2005–2007 merged ACS data, we study the metropolitan destination choices made by newly arrived immigrants from seven top source countries between 2000 and 2007. Using a multinomial logit model, we find that the dispersion of new immigrant groups varies by origin, although all groups were subject to 1) the attraction of co‐ethnic communities, and 2) the positive effects of labor market conditions in the destination (especially the employment growth rate). However, co‐ethnic concentration is much more important than labor market conditions in the destination choice decision, particularly for the poorly educated. Conversely, there is a strong negative effect of co‐ethnic concentration on highly educated new immigrants, revealing a dispersed geographical pattern of these highly educated immigrants. We also find the importance of employment share growth rate for highly educated immigrants which suggests that they are more sensitive to the upward employment structure at the destination than a specific job growth rate, and they may not be attracted by a metropolitan area with a low‐quality employment structure, despite whether there was an increase in high‐level jobs.     

Does Public Lands Policy Affect Local Wage Growth?

The effects on wage growth of management practices applied on public lands in the Northern Forest region of the United States are quantified. A central objective is to determine if the management of public lands for preservationist uses results in lower average wages. This is a frequent claim made by critics of land preservation who argue that preservationist management, by prohibiting resource extraction, causes the composition of employment to shift from high‐wage jobs in resource‐based manufacturing to low‐wage jobs in the service sector. A model of simultaneous employment and net migration growth is estimated with data on non‐metropolitan counties over the period 1990 to 1999 and applied in a recursive relationship to wage growth. In earlier studies, models of this type have typically been specified in levels. Time‐series evidence that supports a preference for growth rates is provided as the form for such models. Exogenous variables in this model include the 1990 shares of the county land base that are publicly owned and managed for preservationist (non‐extractive) uses and multiple (including extractive) uses. It was found that wage growth rates are not significantly affected by the shares of land under either management regime. As well, recent declines in national forest timber sales are found to have no effect on wage growth.     

Are Teen Unemployment Rates Influenced by State Minimum Wage Laws?

ABSTRACT Several recent studies have challenged the conventional notion that raising the minimum wage has negative labor market consequences. In particular, most recent minimum wage research has considered teen employment, with virtually no examination of unemployment rates. Given the conflicting findings in the recent literature, this study reconsiders this issue by examining the minimum wage's influence on teen unemployment rates. The empirical analysis considers state data from the latter 1980s, a unique period where many states raised their minimum wage above the federal level. The results suggest that both a greater minimum wage rate and greater minimum wage coverage increase teen unemployment rates. Further evidence suggests that employment declines outweigh teen labor force reductions, suggesting that increases in unemployment are primarily caused by labor demand shifts. Thus, policy makers should weigh these costs in deciding future minimum wage hikes.     

State Unemployment Differentials: Equilibrium Factors vs. Differential Employment Growth

: Differentials in U.S. state unemployment rates were persistent in the early 1990s. In addition, states with higher employment growth did not necessarily have the lowest unemployment rates. Thus, this paper examines the differentials in U.S. state unemployment rates from 1992 to 1994, decomposing them into the parts that were due to differences in recent employment growth, and those that were due to longer-term equilibrium factors. Also, using the shift-share model, employment growth differences are decomposed into an industry mix component and a competitiveness component. The decomposition of the 1992 to 1994 unemployment rate differentials is based on an econometric equation estimated using panel data from 1972 to 1991. Explanatory equilibrium factors included in the model are amenities, demographic characteristics, education, industry composition, labor mobility, and wage rates.     

Internal Migration in Mexico: Consolidation of Urban–Urban Mobility, 2000–2015

Internal migration has been recognized as the major influence in terms of population redistribution across urban systems, but it is not a homogeneous phenomenon. Within the context of internal rural‐urban migration decline and the negative changes in migratory balances in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, the core of enquiry in this paper is the approach to growth and consolidation of an internal urban–urban migration system in the early twenty‐first century (2000–2015). This process has taken place through two main networks, among metropolitan areas not corresponding to the principal city and among intermediate cities. Internal migration is a complex process that involves both individual and spatial characteristics and which leads to spatially uneven development in the long term. Data from three censuses of the population of Mexico (2000, 2010, and 2015) show a transition to a more urban–urban migration pattern, with skilled migrants tending to have metropolitan and urban destinations, whereas less‐skilled migrants prefer rural and small urban destinations.     

Long-distance commuting and population change in Georgia, 1960-80

The authors investigate counter-urbanization and population change in Georgia between 1960 and 1980 by examining commuting patterns. "The immediate objective is to construct the entire set of commuting fields of both large metropolitan areas to metropolitan and nonmetropolitan employment centers. We then proceed to the relationship between commuting from nonmetropolitan areas to all levels of Georgia's urban hierarchy and population change in these nonmetropolitan settings. By matching population growth and decline areas with explicit employment ties...the nature of the population changes is much better understood." Data from the 1960, 1970, and 1980 censuses for 581 Census County Divisions (CCDs) in Georgia are analyzed. It is concluded that "most nonmetropolitan growth taking place in Georgia is associated with intensification of metropolitan commuting fields along with growth of nonmetropolitan centers and their influence along the very periphery of metropolitan spheres of employment influence. However, a significant share of Georgia's nonmetropolitan population revitalization is explained by growth independent of direct metropolitan influence. It would appear then that nonmetropolitan growth centers are an important part of the basis for population decentralization in Georgia. Metropolitan spill-over alone cannot account for counterurbanization on this portion of the American economic landscape."     

The Impact of Tax Incentives: Do Initial Economic Conditions Matter?

Do the returns to business tax incentives differ according to the initial economic conditions of the area providing tax relief? Past research studies have provided conflicting answers to this question. Bartik (1991) concluded that rates of return to business tax incentives are likely to be greater for less affluent areas than for wealthier areas offering equivalent incentives. In contrast, Fisher and Peters (1998) determined that tax incentives tend only to offset higher taxes on businesses located in low income areas. This study examines this issue using a unique data set that allows for a fresh look at this issue. We find that the returns to subsidized investment are greater in lower unemployment and higher income areas. This suggests that tax incentives reinforce pre‐existing economic differences across areas.     

Commuting distances to local non‐farm workplaces and out‐migration: The case of Northeast Thailand

The relationship between commuting distances and where people work has been studied for urban contexts in both developed countries and developing countries. However, few studies have examined the situation in rural areas, and none look at commuting distances to non‐farm workplaces in rural areas of developing countries. This paper investigates how commuting distance, and thus accessibility, to local non‐farm work influences non‐farm employment and out‐migration from rural villages in Northeast Thailand. The main issues examined are: (i) the distance that rural residents travel to work in local non‐farm jobs; and (ii) the influence that local non‐farm employment has on the number of outmigrants from rural villages. The study finds: (i) distance between villages and non‐farm work sites impact the number of villagers who are employed in regular wage work; (ii) beyond 20 km villagers are less likely to travel to non‐farm employment using their own means of transportation; and (iii) employment in regular wage work decreases outmigration. The findings from this study contribute to the debates over the drivers of rural out‐migration, rural livelihood changes, and agrarian changes that are taking place in Southeast Asia.