The persistence of local joblessness

Differences in employment-population ratios across US commut- ing zones have persisted for many decades. We claim these dispar- ities represent real gaps in economic opportunity for individuals of fxed characteristics. These gaps persist despite a strong migratory response, and we attribute this to high persistence in labor demand shocks. These trends generate a \race" between local employment and population: population always lags behind employment, yield- ing persistent deviations in employment rates. Methodologically, we argue the employment rate can serve as a sufficient statistic for local well-being; and we model population and employment dy- namics using an error correction mechanism, which explicitly al- lows for disequilibrium