International Migration with Heterogeneous Agents: Theory and Evidence

Abstract

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Internal Migration Across Italian Regions: Macroeconomic Determinants and Accommodating Potential for a Dualistic Economy

“…However, differently from almost all existing literature, notable exceptions are Hatton (1995), Brücker and Schröder (2007) and Fachin (2007), we deeply investigate the dynamic characteristics of the series and study migration inside a cointegration framework.…”

“…In spite of the burgeoning of both theoretical and empirical literature on migration in the recent years, it is surprising that very few works have dealt with the issues of non-stationarity and cointegration. Notable exceptions are Brücker and Schröder (2007) and the aforementioned works of Hatton (1995) and Fachin (2007). According to Hatton (1995) there exists a long-run relationship between the migration rate and the explanatory variables of equation (1).…”

“…In other words these variables have to be cointegrated and preliminary to any estimation, a carefully analysis of their statistical properties must be carried out. More recently, Brücker and Schröder (2007) develop a migration model with heterogeneous agents in which the equilibrium relationship comes out between income differentials and migration stocks. Differently from Fachin (2007), in our paper the time span is longer, the analysis is done at regional rather than at macro-areas level and for the migration rate defined with respect to the whole population, not just for the males.…”

Migration and trade union rights

“…We thus estimate determinants of migrants' stocks and not flows. Brücker and Schröder (2006) showed that empirical migration models estimating net migration flows instead of stocks may be misspecified: at the equilibrium, a positive relation exists between the stock of migrants while the net migration flow becomes zero. This is consistent with stylized facts that show that net migration rates tend to cease over time.…”

Diaspora effects in international migration: Key questions and methodological issues

“…If regularization programs are implemented between the two censuses, the stocks of migrants in the second census and hence the size of the migration flows will increase in the data without actual movement of people. Another theoretical argument developed by Brücker (2006) suggests that using net migration flows instead of stocks might be misleading in the case of heterogeneous agents. This is especially important when it comes to estimating the impact of wage differentials on migration.…”