SITE Seminar | Social ties and residential choice: Micro evidence and aggregate implications
Join us for the next SITE Seminar! On November 3, 2026, we welcome Martin Koenen to present new research on how social ties shape migration and residential choices. Using individual-level data from Facebook, the study examines how friends influence whether people move, where they relocate, and why individuals may remain in places with fewer economic opportunities.
Working paper
Title: Social Ties and Residential Choice: Micro Evidence and Aggregate Implications
Authors: Martin Koenen and Drew Johnston
Read the working paper
Abstract
Why don't more people move to places where they can earn more? Using individual-level data from Facebook, we show that social ties play a crucial role in explaining this fact. Exploiting variation in the timing of friends' moves around individuals' college graduation, we show that friends shape both whether people migrate and where they move to. Since social ties are geographically concentrated, the estimated per-friend effects translate into a large aggregate pull, helping to explain why people often remain in poorer places, and why less-educated individuals are less responsive to local economic shocks.
About the speaker
Martin Koenen is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for International Economic Studies (IIES) at Stockholm University. His research examines how social capital shapes economic outcomes, including where people live and how much they earn, as well as the causes and consequences of political preferences and polarization. He is an Associate at Opportunity Insights at Harvard University and is also affiliated with the CESifo Network and RFBerlin. He received his PhD in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University in 2025.
Registration
- On-site at SSE: No registration required.
- Online via Zoom: Registration is required to receive the meeting link. Register here.
Photo: Shutterstock
