Life on the Frontier: Migrant Information, Earnings and Past Mobility

This paper examines the extent to which information obtained from past geographic mobility affects both post-move job-search and earnings in subsequent migration [in the United States]. The study considers this linkage between past and present mobility by estimating earnings frontiers for various categories of interstate migrants partitioned by prior mobility history....[The] results demonstrate that migrant groups exhibiting high relative levels of human capital stock do not necessarily possess superior pre-move labor market information. It is also demonstrated that the incentive to acquire this pre-move information is tied to psychic cost and variation in this cost among migrant types. (EXCERPT)