Essays on Labour and Regional Economics

This thesis consists of three chapters in empirical labour and regional economics. They generally analyze how local labour market performance varies across different times and spaces. The first chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of labour market evolutions in rural areas in four most populous European countries since 1970. We document large differences in employment growth and changes in the industry structure are fast. Furthermore, industry turnover is positively associated with employment growth. Finally, our evidence indicates that successful rural areas experience stronger employment growth in manufacturing of food and beverages. In the second chapter, I investigate the employment consequences of deindustrialization between 2010 and 2020 for cities in seven Chinese provinces, which could be viewed as China's Rust Belt, and explore the role of local multipliers. Cities within this Rust Belt reacted very differently to the aggregate decreasing trend of manufacturing employment. I document a high level of spatial heterogeneity across the local labour markets. I then study the role of local multiplier effects exploiting a shift-share approach. My estimates indicate that for every job created (lost) in the tradable sector in a given city, between 1.6 and 1.9 additional jobs are created (lost) in the non-tradable sector in the same city. The third chapter presents direct evidence on the extent to which firms’ innovation is affected by access to knowledgeable labor through co-worker network connections. Displacements of inventors because of plant closures generate labor supply shocks to firms that employ their previous co-workers. We estimate (a) event-study models where the treatment is the displacement of a connected inventor and (b) IV specifications where we use such a displacement as an instrument for the hire of a connected inventor. Estimates indicate that firms take advantage of displacements to recruit connected inventors and that the improved capacity increases innovation.