Multilateral resistance to migration Articles uri icon

publication date

  • May 2013

start page

  • 79

end page

  • 100

volume

  • 102

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 0304-3878

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 1872-6089

abstract

  • The rate of migration observed between two countries does not depend solely on their relative attractiveness, but also on the one of alternative destinations. Following the trade literature, we term the influence exerted by other destinations on bilateral flows as Multilateral Resistance to Migration, and we show how it can be accounted for when estimating the determinants of migration rates in the context of a general individual random utility maximization model. We propose the use of the Common Correlated Effects estimator (Pesaran, 2006) and apply it to high-frequency data on the Spanish immigration boom between 1997 and 2009. Compared to more restrictive estimation strategies developed in the literature, the bias goes in the expected direction: we find a smaller effect of GDP per capita and a larger effect of migration policies on bilateral rates

keywords

  • international migration; economic determinants; migration policies; time-varying attractiveness; multiple destinations