Labor Mobility in the US

Just had dinner with Jason and Claire out here in DC. Jason is interviewing with UM Baltimore for a pharm school and decided to drop by my neck of the woods. This reminds me of what I had learned in the course of writing my dissertation. Of all the claims of American exceptionalism, the one thing that does make Americans somewhat unique is its high rate of internal labor mobility.

Part of the reason is that America is one giant political and culturally continuous place. It is much easier for me to pack up and leave for DC, 2300 miles away than it is for a Spaniard to do the equivalent and move to Poland. But there is also evidence that US has a high rate of internal migration even controlling for land size.

We believe this level of labor mobility is good for economic growth. Sometime it might be more efficient to move capital (outsourcing a low-skill operation to a place with low wages), but sometimes it is more efficient to move labor to capital (have a high skill oil rig worker move from Texas to Alaska), and having high level of labor mobility as compared to other countries is definitely an advantage. I have no idea if this is a big advantage or a trivial one, but it is a plus.