Valentin Lindlacher

New Region, New Chances: Does Moving Regionally for University Shape Later Job Mobility?

with Felix Ehrenfried and Thomas Fackler
Regional Studies (published online)
link to CESifo Working Paper
link to policy report (in German)

Efficient local labour markets feature welfare and higher wages. For this efficiency, regional mobility is an essential factor. We find that high school graduates who move to another labour market region (LMR) when enrolling at a university, are also more likely to move to a third LMR when entering the job market. We take a subset of university graduates who went to high school in an agglomeration's suburbs. To take endogeneity in the decision to move into account, we use distance to university as an instrument. Experiencing a change in the residential region is a chance to induce regional mobility.

Keywords: regional mobility; job mobility; distance to university; students; spatial
JEL-Codes: J61, R23, I23

Is High-Speed Internet an Infrastructure of General Interest?

Information Economics and Policy (2021), Vol. 56:3. (link to publication)

Although the recent years have witnessed a stark increase in the availability of high-speed Internet, adoption rates remain low. One potential explanation is that for most users high-speed Internet does not increase their utility. Using a mixed logit discrete choice model, this paper analyzes whether high-speed and basic Internet are substitutes. I find that they are not. Users who do not need higher speeds, choose basic speeds regardless of high-speed availability. Therefore, high-speed Internet is not an infrastructure of general interest. Consequently, policy-makers cannot increase usage of high-speed Internet by solely fostering its rollout.

Keywords: high-speed Internet; broadband; discrete choice; mixed logit
JEL-Codes: L96, L13, L51