Differential labour mobility and agglomeration

This paper develops an analytically solvable new economic geography model in which not only skilled, self-employed labour is mobile, but also the unskilled labour force. Unskilled labour mobility increases the agglomeration incentive of skilled labour and influences the pattern of agglomeration. At high levels of trade costs, skilled and unskilled labour migration reinforce each other leading to agglomeration of both types of labour in the same region. For lower levels of trade costs, unskilled labour remigrates, whereas skilled labour remains concentrated.