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)

Using a procedure that allows selective pooling of certain subsamples of the data, this study examines the determinants of state unemployment rates in the United States. By selectively pooling the data, more reliable parameter estimates result than could otherwise be obtained were the data disaggregated to the state level, and the specification error inherent in a complete pooling of the data is avoided. The models are estimated using two stage least squares, and the empirical results indicate considerable heterogeneity across areas in the ways in which unemployment rates are determined.