Since 2005, the Korean government has relocated national research institutes from the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) to other parts of the nation. The main purpose of this relocation is to ameliorate disparities in population and economic power across regions. However, it turns out that only 27% of researchers in the SMA have actually relocated. This implies that researcher's preference for a living environment should be reflected in the planning process. Hence, this paper attempts to specify the migration behaviors of researchers by comparing their preferences with those of general workers. Here, regional living environment is represented by a function of two attributes: regional labor market conditions and living environments. The paper shows that regional living environments have a more decisive impact on the migration of researchers, relative to general workers. Also, researchers are found to be slightly more sensitive to regional living environments especially crime than regional labor market conditions. Finally, the paper suggests a policy direction for balanced development among regions in Korea based on the results obtained.

This study proposes a weighted spatial dynamic shift‐share model that considers two regional attributes, namely, interregional interactions and regional receptive capabilities for domestic and international economic change, to improve the forecasting capability of the traditional shift‐share model. In particular, the spatial dependence among regions is embodied by a spatial weight matrix based on contiguity. Additionally, regional receptive capabilities are represented by weights imposed on regional industries. Forecasts over the period of 2014–2016 are made for 14 regions in South Korea using the proposed model. The results are compared with actual data from the same period and evaluated in terms of the mean absolute percentage error. The results indicate that the proposed model is more reliable and accurate than the traditional model and other dynamic extensions.