Issues discussed include the time period over which migration is measured, the appropriate spatial unit to be used and what difference that unit makes. Various methods of estimating migration flows are presented, including Markov transition matrices, and migration efficiency measures are developed. These measures are subsequently applied to migration data for the 50 states of the United States. Migration forecasting is critically important for planners, and various forecasting methods are presented in this section. The concluding section reviews sources of migration data and provides Internet addresses for selected migration-related sites.
Some authors define migration as a move between two different spatial labor markets.
Local labor markets are the subject of Section V . Both conceptual and empirical issues are reviewed in this section. Key variables that distinguish different local labor markets are discussed, such as unemployment rates and wages. Recently there has been some interest in testing for the amount of spatial association that exists within local markets, including labor markets, and the results of one of these studies are presented briefly. The section concludes with a brief discussion of the spatial mismatch hypothesis as it relates to local labor markets and worker mobility, and current federal economic development strategies targeted at local labor markets in general.