Alan M. Schlottmann

Labor force mobility in the United States: migration, unemployment, and remigration.

This study examines the relationships between pre-and post-move unemployment and interstate migration of the United States labor force for the period 1965 to 1970. Multivariate analyses are conducted for several large occupation groups. The results indicate a strong link between unemployment and migration. Unemployment increases migration possibilities for each large occupation group considered. Substantial post-move unemployment exists, but there is a significant link between migration and such unemployment only for blue-collar workers who are repeat migrants.

New Directions in Migration Research: Perspectives from Some North American Regional Science Disciplines

This paper takes several surveys of the literature concerning migration research as its starting point and directs the reader toward a number of potentially fruitful lines for future research. Major sections include one on modeling migrant choice in which the pros and cons of using gross versus net migration measures are discussed. A second introduces and discusses the concept of a “spatial” choice set, which has the potential to be implemented with laboratory experimental techniques. The third involves a wide-ranging discussion of new directions in modeling the interrelationships between employment and migration.

Life on the Frontier: Migrant Information, Earnings and Past Mobility

This paper examines the extent to which information obtained from past geographic mobility affects both post-move job-search and earnings in subsequent migration [in the United States]. The study considers this linkage between past and present mobility by estimating earnings frontiers for various categories of interstate migrants partitioned by prior mobility history....[The] results demonstrate that migrant groups exhibiting high relative levels of human capital stock do not necessarily possess superior pre-move labor market information. It is also demonstrated that the incentive to acquire this pre-move information is tied to psychic cost and variation in this cost among migrant types. (EXCERPT)

Labor market institutions and the efficiency of interregional migration: A Cross-Nation Comparison

An important question for economists concerns the effectiveness, or efficiency, of interregional migration as a labor market adjustment mechanism. We have considered the many dimensions of this issue in Chapter 1. Hoover and Giarratani (1984) suggest that this question of efficiency can be addressed at three different levels of inquiry by: (1) examining ratios of net to total gross flows of migrants between pairs of regions; (2) determining whether migrants benefit from their actions in terms of enhanced employment and/or income opportunity; and (3) assessing the contribution of interregional migration to aggregate output or, more broadly, to social welfare. Although a perfectly homogeneous labor force is required for (1) to assume economic meaning, and (3) is often considered unopera-tional due to the difficulty of measuring migration externalities, a number of recent studies have addressed the question of migration efficiency (directly and indirectly) along the lines of (2) above.1

Forecasting the Population of Census Tracts by Age and Sex: An Example of the Hamilton–Perry Method in Action

Small area population projections are useful in a range of business applications. This paper uses a case study to show how this type of task can be accomplished by using the Hamilton–Perry method, which is a variant of the cohort-component projection technique. We provide the documentation on the methods, data, and assumptions used to develop two sets of population projections for census tracts in Clark County, Nevada, and discuss specific factors needed to accomplish this task, including the need to bring expert judgment to bear on the task. Our experience suggests that the Hamilton–Perry Method is an important tool and we advise considering it for small forecasting needs in the private sector.

Migration and labor market adjustment

This volume presents papers from the International Conference on Migration and Labor Market Adjustment held at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville October 15-17 1987. The papers are organized under chapter headings on migration as a reflection of interregional labor market adjustment; the relationships among unemployment migration and job matching; aspects of regional labor market dynamics migration and economic efficiency; the human investment approach to labor market mobility and personal status; and conceptual and methodological issues. The geographical focus is on the United States and the market-economy countries of Europe.

Rates and Race: An Analysis of Racial Disparities in Mortgage Rates

Abstract We use a model based on the 1991–2001 American Housing Survey to determine whether differences in mortgage rates among whites, blacks, and Hispanics are due to differences in the property and loan characteristics of the borrowers themselves or to racial differences in how those characteristics are priced into rates. We separate loans into major market categories and present decompositions to assess the differences and distinguish between them. Very little information on mortgage pricing has been generally available to researchers, and the literature that discusses what information there is has not used a scheme that allows rate differences to be classified by characteristics and pricing. We find that significant differentials are more likely in the conventional mortgage market. The largest occur among blacks, who pay a much higher annual percentage rate than whites for both purchases and refinancing. For government‐insured loans, Hispanics do slightly better than whites.

Empirical Econometric Modelling of Food Consumption Using a New Informational Complexity Approach

This paper is concerned with empirical econometric modeling of food consumption in the USA and the Netherlands. Using autoregressive distributed lag models (ADLs) selected via the Informational Complexity (ICOMP) criterion, we study the relationship between food consumption and income. Whether food consumption obeys the homogeneity postulate is tested using information criteria. Using information-theoretic techniques, we identify the optimal information set and lag order for a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) forecast of food consumption in the Netherlands we demonstrate how multisample cluster analysis, a combinatorial grouping of samples or data matrices, can be used to determine when the pooling of data sets is appropriate, and how ICOMP can be used in conjunction with the Genetic Algorithm (GA) to determine the optimal predictors in the celebrated seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) model framework.

The Dynamics of Homeownership: Eliminating the Gap between African American and White Households

This article uses a sample of young renters from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and a continuous-time econometric model to explore not only the initial tenure transition to first-time homeownership, but also subsequent possible tenure transitions to a second owned home, back to rental tenure and, indirectly, to a second owned home from rental tenure. Once estimated, the predicted probabilities of these transitions are used to calculate the probability of homeownership at various times for households in the sample. These estimates are done separately for African Americans and whites for two different 11-year time intervals, 1987–1997 and 1993–2003. A primary result is that if African American education, income, net wealth and savings behavior could be brought in line with that of white households the majority of the racial gap in homeownership could be eliminated in either time period.

New life for old garbage Resource and energy recovery from solid wastes

Abstract National interest has been growing recently in the potential for systems of resource recovery from municipal solid wastes, particularly from those systems associated with energy recovery. A regional model for resource and energy recovery from municipal solid wastes is discussed briefly in this paper. Particular attention is given to the definition of profits and to the question of whether resource recycling could be truly regional in scope or would be limited to a few urban areas. An empirical application of the model to a resource recovery system in the Tennessee Valley Authority region is summarized.