We propose a new model of internal migration, based on persistent and spatially correlated idiosyncratic utility. The model is motivated by a new fact in the data that simple moving cost models struggle to match: the t-year interstate migration rate is proportional to the square root of t. The new model maintains the tractability and flexibility of standard migration models, but better matches the dynamics of migration, including the new fact. It has substantially different welfare implications and makes different counterfactual predictions, especially in terms of dynamic adjustment and long-run responses.

Remote work has increased the demand for housing and changed the demand for the location of that housing. Because housing supply is heterogeneous across space and more elastic in the long-run, the effects on rents and populations may differ over time. We use the lens of a spatial housing model with heterogeneous housing supply elasticities to identify the housing and location demand changes from 2020–2022, and show that the same shocks will have different effects in the long run. Even though rents and prices increased significantly in the short-run, we estimate that in the long-run, increased housing demand will increase rents by only 1.8 percentage points, and that changing location demand will decrease rents by 0.3 percentage points, with a more negative impact on cities in which CPI is measured and cities that were initially expensive.

We use a novel identification strategy to investigate whether regional universities make their local economies more resilient. Our strategy is based on state governments using similar site-selection criteria to assign normal schools (to train teachers) and insane asylums between 1830 and 1930. Normal schools became larger regional universities while asylum properties mostly continue as small state-owned psychiatric health facilities. We find that a regional university roughly offsets the negative effects of manufacturing exposure. We show the resilience of regional public university spending is an important mechanism, and we show correlations consistent with bachelor’s degree share also playing a mediating role.