Job Mobility, Commuting, and Moving (Chapter 10)

Until now, job mobility was excluded by the analysis because only one labour market was considered. Job mobility, indeed, refers to people moving from one place to another for work reasons. This chapter, therefore, develops a simple spatial version of the basic search and matching model that considers two labour markets located in two countries: the country of residence and other nearby countries. In this way, the chapter can deal with two key factors affecting job mobility: commuting and moving (relocation). By introducing the housing search and matching process (described in Chapter 2), moreover, the model clearly shows the close relationship between moving and the so-called “housing liquidity issue”.