1. INTRODUCTION
In a context of increasing globalization, knowing which factors determine worker
mobility is an interesting issue as it has several implications for regional development,
the behaviour of labour markets and social cohesion.
Mobility may be studied from different perspectives. In this paper our goal is to study
the relationship between job mobility, spatial mobility and wage mobility. For that we
have to integrate models from labour economics, which analyse the issues of job
mobility and wage mobility, and regional economics, which consider topics of spatial
and wage mobility, in order to be able to address the question that we intend to study.
We will consider both theoretical results concerning mobility and the results of
empirical analyses of the determinants of mobility.
The paper is organized as follows. In the next section a summary of major theoretical
and empirical results concerning determinants of mobility are presented. In section 3 we
study the determinants of job, spatial and wage mobility in Portugal.
2. SUMMARY OF THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL RESULTS
ON JOB, WAGE AND SPATIAL MOBILITY
This section aims at presenting the major results of studies on job, spatial and wage
mobility. Job mobility is defined as a situation where the workers change employer and
spatial mobility as a situation where the workers change workplace.
Studies on job mobility have been mainly concerned with issues such as the effect of
mobility on wages, the relationship between tenure and wages and the effects of factors
such as age, skills, or the business cycle on mobility. Theoretical models such as human
capital (see Becker (1962, 1964) or Mincer (1958, 1962, 1974)), shirking (see Lazear
(1979, 1981)) or search and matching (see Stigler (1962) Mortensen (1970), McCall
(1970) e Gronau (1971)) provide explanations for job mobility in which mobility is
usually seen as decreasing with age, tenure, experience.
In the Human Capital Models, the increases in wages arise from individual market
experience (measured by the age of worker) - this market experience could be
correlated with tenure due to specific human capital - and from schooling/formation.
Generally it is considered two different types of human capital: i) General Human