Geography, Migrations and Equilibrium Unemployment

We study the effect of trade integration on the regional coevolution of income, migrations, and unemployment in a dynamic coreperiphery model with limited labor mobility and frictions in the job matching process. Our model can help explain a recently documented empirical puzzle, i.e., the divergence of unemployment rates, together with low migrations and modest income convergence experienced by European regions over the last twenty years. By studying explicitly the transitional dynamics of the model, we also highlight a contrast between short run and long run effects of trade and policy shocks on a geographically differentiated economy.