Connecting Lagging and Leading Regions : The Role of Labor Mobility

Lall, Somik V. ; Timmins, Christopher ; Yu, Shouyue

关键词: AGGLOMERATION BENEFITS;    AIR;    BASIC SOCIAL SERVICES;    BIASES;    CAPITAL ACCUMULATION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4843
RP-ID  :  WPS4843

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

How can policies improve the welfare ofpeople in economically lagging regions of countries? Shouldpolicies help jobs follow people? Or should they enablepeople to follow jobs? In most countries, market forces haveencouraged the geographic concentration of people andeconomic activities - policies that try to offset theseforces to encourage balanced economic growth have largelybeen unsuccessful. However, policies that help people getcloser to economic density have improved individual welfare.In this paper, the authors examine the migration decisionsof working-age Brazilians and find that the pull of higherwages in leading regions has a strong influence on thedecision to migrate. However, many people are also"pushed" to migrate, starved of access to basicpublic services such as clean water and sanitation in theirhometowns. Although migration is welfare-improving for theseindividuals, the economy may end up worse off as thesemigrants are more likely to add to congestion costs incities than to contribute to agglomeration benefits.Encouraging human capital formation can stimulate labormobility for economic gain; and improving access to andquality of basic services in lagging regions will directlyimprove welfare as well as reduce the type of migrationmotivated by the search for life-supporting basic services.