Migration costs and determinants of bilateral migration flows

Abstract

In this paper I research economic, non-economic and the institutional determinants of bilateral migration flows into OECD countries. My contribution to the growing literature is two-fold. First, I explicitly account for the panel structure of migration costs information acquisition, physical costs of the move and social exclusion). Second, building upon Beine et al. (2011b), I proceed with the analysis of determinants of bilateral migration flows disaggregated by educational attainments in the panel data environment. The preliminary results show that the defined cost variables are significant in explaining the volume and composition of the flow of migrants, the result not being sensitive to the model specification. Network effects promote negative self-selection and the quality of migrants positively correlates, while the physical distance, existence of a common language and colonial links between countries are insignificant in explaining the educational composition of migrants. I further conclude that the restrictive and skill selective immigration policies of the major destination countries bias the conventional role of the economic push and pull factors.