【摘要】Low rates of internal migration in many European countries contribute to the persistenceof significant regional labor market differences. I use the Mikrozensus, a large annual sample ofhouseholds living in Germany, to further our understanding of the underlying reasons. This papermakes two main contributions: first, the paper quantifies the disutility of migrating. To this end, Iestimate conditional logit models of the migration decision across the German federal states. Second, Ithen focus on the differences between immigrants and natives. I find significantly higher responsivenessto labor market differentials in the immigrant population than in the native population. Unobservedmoving costs for immigrants are estimated to be only about 31 percent of this same cost for natives. Thefindings bear on the assessment of the economic impact of immigration, and the paper contributes tothe current immigration-related policy debates that feature prominently in many European countries,and that likely will continue to be important in light of the ongoing EU expansion and the resultingeast–west migration.

【文献来源】Schundeln M.Journal of Regional Science.2014（1）