Migration,unemployment dispersion and the Phillips curve

Policy-makers have long known that the complexity of the labor market creates the potential for a wide variety of strategies to be utilized to improve the ‘wage inflation-unemployment’ trade-off. This research assesses the potential effect of two unemployment-reducing strategies — reducing the dispersion of unemployment rates and increasing labor-force migration. The results of the regression analysis suggest that an approach which encourages labor-force migration would be more efficient than the present shot-gun approach of CETA and other manpower programs. Cost estimates also suggest that it is more expensive to improve the Phillips curve through employment expanding expenditures than it is to improve the curve through migration inducement.