Housing Policies and the Labor Market
Publication Date
1-1-2013
Grant Type
Early Career Research Award
Description
This research will explore how changes in housing regulations affect economic inequality and mobility, both in the long run and in response to business cycle shocks. I will explore migration and occupational mobility in response to higher frequency shocks like unemployment and recessions. Using new data on online vacancies and job search behavior, I intend to study how migration and up-skilling and skill-mismatch work to clear labor markets across regions. I will also explore how housing markets and regulations affect the role of migration in response to unemployment shocks. Based on past work on long-run income differences, I expect housing regulations to be an important mediator for business cycle shocks like unemployment as well. This is important because housing restrictions are something can be directly addressed by policy and are not typically studied as labor market policies.