Interprovincial Migration in Canada as a Human Capital Decision

Net Migration Estimation in an Extended, Multiregional Gravity Model*

“…The rejuvenation of the populations of eastern Atlantic provinces and the continuing westward movement at the expense of the more populous central provinces in the late 1970's were quite different from the patterns observed less than a decade before. The reasons for these changing patterns remain largely unexplored, although results of earlier studies do suggest a number of appropriate hypotheses [Vanderkamp (1968[Vanderkamp ( , 1971[Vanderkamp ( , 1976; Courchene (1970,1974); Laber and Chase (1971); Grant and Vanderkamp (1976); Winer and Gauthier (1982)]. Some of these are further examined in the results presented in this paper.…”

“…13 numerous other factors, such as individual characteristics [e.g., Persky and Kain (1970)], government policies [e.g., Riew (1973)], and quality-of-life considerations [e.g., Graves (1976)] have also been shown to influence the decision to migrate, wage and unemployment rates are the explanatory variables which form the basis for most studies of migration behavior and, hence, are included in this s t~d y . '~ One additional influence on interregional migration which has been noted [ Riew (1973)] but is seldom empirically examined [e.g., Laber and Chase (1971)l is the impact of regional cost-of-living differentials. Since there is no reason to presume, a priori, that migrants are subject to money illusion, living-cost differentials should be included to avoid misspecification [Renas and Kumar (1978)] and may provide significant additional explanatory power [Cebula (1979)l.…”

“…'~ One additional influence on interregional migration which has been noted [Riew (1973)] but is seldom empirically examined [e.g., Laber and Chase (1971)l is the impact of regional cost-of-living differentials. Since there is no reason to presume, a priori, that migrants are subject to money illusion, living-cost differentials should be included to avoid misspecification [Renas and Kumar (1978)] and may provide significant additional explanatory power [Cebula (1979)l.…”

Labor Force Migration, Unemployment and Job Turnover

“…This procedure has been followed in a study of migration in Canada by Laber and Chase (1971). Several other studies have introduced the unemployment rate as a separate variable determining expected PV in a multiple regression explaining migration :' PV3 = g(W, U).…”

Lagged Response in the Decision to Migrate: A Comment*

“…If decisions are made at intervals shorter than intervals in the data, estimates of X will be biased upward . 3 Greenwood views the positive coefficient on MSt-' in his estimated equations as support for the hypothesis t>hat information flows from past migrants stimulate current m i g r a t i~n .~ In view of the argument above, we cannot accept .the coefficients simply as support for an information flows hypothesis. To the extent informa-On this point, see Wallis [6, p. 7791-Greenwood does not mention the length of the lag involved in interstate migration.…”