Intercity migration and employment growth in the Japanese urban economy

Glickman N. J. and McHone W. W. (1977) Intercity migration and employment growth in the Japanese urban economy, Reg. Studies 11, 165-181. This study provides an empirical investigation of the labor market adjustment processes of seven industrial sectors of the Japanese urban economy. A theoretical model is formulated which provides the basic framework for estimating the responsiveness of each industrial sector's employment growth to net labor force migration, intra-city sectoral shifts in employment, and changes in the labor force participation rates of the city's working age population. Following the development of this model, the variables used to represent each of the three labor force adjustment mechanisms are rigorously defined and the source and extent of their intercity variations is analyzed. These variables are then used to construct an empirical model of the sectoral employment growth process. This model is estimated by the technique of Two Stage Least Squares with data from seventy-two Japanese cities for the period 1965-1970.