Spatial spillover effects in the labour market in a middle-income country

Abstract

Most macroeconomic labour literature on estimating matching functions does not consider spatial spillover effects. However, job search and vacancy-filling processes often involve neighbouring locations, as local workers can search for and fill vacancies in nearby labour markets. We estimate a spatial spillover model using annual data for a middle-income country in Latin America. Our findings show that unemployment has a positive spatial spillover effect because an increase in the labour supply raises the probability of filling a vacancy. In contrast, vacancies have a negative spillover effect because local and neighbouring vacancies compete to be filled by workers in both markets.