@TechReport{iza:izadps:dp1027, author={Schiff, Maurice}, title={Labor Mobility, Trade and Social Capital}, year={2004}, month={Feb}, institution={Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)}, address={Bonn}, type={IZA Discussion Paper}, number={1027}, url={https://www.iza.org/publications/dp1027}, abstract={Labor market integration raises welfare in the absence of distortions. This paper examines labor and goods market integration in a general equilibrium model with social capital. The findings are: i) labor market integration has an ambiguous impact on welfare, and raises it if the goods produced and the labor skills are sufficiently different; ii) compared to Pareto optimum, labor mobility (social capital) is excessively large (depleted); iii) trade is superior to labor market integration if trading costs are no higher than private migration costs; otherwise the outcome is ambiguous; and iv) the creation of new institutions in response to labor market integration has an ambiguous impact on welfare.}, keywords={trade;social capital;labor market integration}, }