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REGIONAL HUMAN CAPITAL MOBILITY, EXTERNALITIES AND UNEMPLOYMENT

The case of Italy is particularly interesting for assessing the effects of regional mobility. Actually, the long-term Italian dualism has generated a permanent outflow of workers towards the Northern regions since the so called ’economic miracle’, namely the period of intense economic growth following the Second World War. Though the intensity of this flow has been changing over time, South-North mobility never reversed. As shown by Faini et al. (1997), mobility was reduced from the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s because of several socio-economic factors, like expectations of North-South wage convergence, large-scale job creation in the public sector, transaction costs connected with transfers and job-matching failures (Attanasio and Padoa-Schioppa, 1991).The sudden arrest of State transfers to the Southern economy in 1992 after the crisis of the “intervento straordinario” and the fiscal consolidation required to join the Euro area have stimulated a renewal of migration flows.However, the consequences of this new wave of South-North migration on regional unemployment have not been analysed yet. To the extent that human capital generates externalities, this brain drain might be detrimental not only for local labour market performances but also for long-run local growth. Therefore, testing for the existence of externalities becomes a very important research question. To this aim, we plan to exploit longitudinal yearly data for 103 NUTS-3 Italian regions (i.e. provinces) over the period 2002-2011 made available by the Italian National Institute for Statistics (ISTAT), which include accurate information on the flows of skilled and unskilled workers.Basic referencesAttanasio O. and Padoa-Schioppa F. (1991), “Regional inequalities, migration and mismatch in Italy, 1960-86”, in F. Padoa-Schioppa (ed.), Mismatch and labor mobility. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.Baddeley M., Martin R. and Tyler P. (2000), “Regional wage rigidity: the European Union and United States compared”, Journal of Regional Science, 40: 115-142.Bayer C. and Jueben F. (2007), “Convergence in West German Regional Unemployment Rates”,German Economic Review, Verein fur Socialpolitik, 8: 510-535.Blanchard O.J. and Katz L.F. (1992), “Regional evolutions”, Brooking Papers on Economic Activity, 1: 1-75.Decressin J. and Fatàs A. (1995), “Regional Labour Market Dynamics in Europe”, European Economic Review, 39: 1627-1655.Faini R., Galli G., Gennari P. and Rossi F. (1997), “An Empirical Puzzle: Falling Migration and Growing Unemployment Differentials among Italian Regions”, European Economic Review, 4:571-579.Groenewold N. (1997), “Does migration equalize regional unemployment rates? Evidence from Australia”, Papers in Regional Science, 76: 1-20.Moeller J. (1995), “Empirische Analyse der Regionalentwicklung”, in Gahlen B., Hesse H. and Ramser H. J. (Eds) Standort und Region – neue Ans¨atze zur Regional¨okonomik. Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Seminar Ottobeuren 24: 197–234. Mohr, Tuebingen.Partridge M. and Rickman D. (2006), “An SVAR model of fluctuations in U.S. migration flows and state labor market dynamics”, Southern Economic Journal, 72: 958-980.Suedekum J. (2004), “Selective migration, union wage setting and unemployment disparities in West Germany”, International Economic Journal, 18: 33-48.Wrage P. (1981), “The regional effects of internal migration on regional wage and unemployment disparities in Canada”, Journal of Regional Science, 21: 51-63.