Paper #138

Title:

Regional growth in Japan

Author:

Etsuro Shioji

Date:

January 1992 (Revised: October 1995)

Abstract:

I study the role of internal migration in income convergence across regions in Japan. Neoclassical theory predicts that migration should have been an important source of convergence. Regression results, however, suggest that migration did not contribute to convergence. I investigate the possibility that this discrepancy is explained by taking into account the effects of migration on population composition, especially on educational attainment. I propose an empirical approach to quantify this ``educational composition effect''. It is shown that, although this effect did slow down convergence, its magnitude was too small to account for the discrepancy between theory and empirics.

Area of Research:

Macroeconomics and International Economics

Published in:

The Journal of Japanese and International Economies, 15, 29-49 (2001), Academic Press

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