spatial inequalities

The primary objective of this research project is to gain a deeper understanding of spatial inequalities. The research aims to provide additional insights into the causes and consequences of changes in geographical sorting and their impact on inequality. Spatial inequalities have garnered significant attention in both academic and non-academic circles, as economic activity is becoming increasingly concentrated in geographic space over time. A range of policies is being implemented to address the issue, including the UK's "levelling-up" policy, measures to prevent depopulation in certain areas in Spain, and the allocation of EU funds for territorial policies.
This research project aims at studying the match between workers and locations and the complementarities that arise from these interactions. To achieve this objective, this research project will utilize a flexible estimation of a double-sided, discrete-type migration model with latent types, to provide crucial, economically meaningful information on the match between workers and locations. This methodology is an extension of the LPR framework (Lentz et al., 2023), which is designed to analyse the match between workers and firms, to examine the match between people and locations and the associated challenges. The proposed framework allows for the examination of how wages depend on worker and location unobserved heterogeneity over the life cycle as well as the complementarity between the two factors in an unrestricted way. Ultimately, this will enable the provision of evidence on the locations where each type of worker is most productive and the characteristics of such places.