Romanian Erasmus Students’ Flows-Gravity Model Approach

Abstract

Some Methodological ConsiderationsAlready recognized at the academic level, the gravity model is a methodological architecture, applied with success in economics, especially in the research focused on trade flows study, as well as in the case of other research methods. Although the gravity model is used with an increased frequency and for a number of years, the specialists didn't arrive to a consensus yet regarding its theoretical and methodological design.The initial gravity model in economics was based on the Newton's universal gravity law, postulating that "every two particles are attracted one to each other with a force AbstractThe aim of this paper is to analyze the Erasmus students' flows between Romania and the partner countries in the period between 2004 and 2012 using the gravity model.The analysis was made in EViews. For the determination of the coefficients, panel data were used, with 8 cross-sections and 9 periods, respectively the period between 2004 and 2012. The findings are similar with the ones in the previous studies: the GDP and the population have a positive effect on the Erasmus students' flows, the geographical distance and the cultural distance between two partner countries do not have a significant influence on the Erasmus students' flows and the linguistic similarity between the country of origin and the host country has a positive effect on the Erasmus students' flows.This paper is useful for the Romanian students, who are interested to know in which countries are other Romanian students and, also, for the Romanian and international universities, to find out which aspects they have to improve in order to be more attractive for the international students.The main originality is the application of the gravity model on the Romanian Erasmus students' flows.

Why should the gravity model be taught in business education?

“…Recommendations for future studies: using the gravity model for different kind of services (education (Keller & Yeaple, 2009;Tamaş, 2017), finance (Rose & Spiegel, 2004), tourism (Erlander & Stewart, 1990), transport (Masucci et al, 2013)) and for non-tangible goods (movies, songs, videos, advertising (Blum & Goldfarb, 2006)), like the mentioned authors already did and even for special kind of goods (medicine, books, creative arts etc.). For each of the above different determinants, the gravity model should be tried, as well as different methodologies and the necessary comparisons conducted.…”

“…The distance between two countries matters for taste dependent digitaly products, like music or games, a 1% increase in physical distance will lead to a 3,25% decrease on the websites' visits (Blum & Goldfarb, 2006). There are flows where the distance does not matter at all: for non-taste dependent products like software (Blum & Goldfarb, 2006) or Erasmus students' flows (Tamaş, 2017).…”

Erasmus+ hallgatók áramlásának vizsgálata gravitációs modellel

“…Tobler [38] nem mellesleg a földrajz első törvényeként említi, amikor a gravitációs rendezőelv érvényesülését bizonyítja a népesség mozgásában. A migrációval, turizmussal, sőt Erasmus mobilitással kapcsolatos kutatásokban is megvan tehát a létjogosultsága a modellnek, nem véletlen, hogy számos empirikus munkában sikeresen alkalmazták már [15] [19] [31] [34] [36] [41].…”

“…-NÉPi és NÉPj a küldő-és a fogadóország népességét jelenti. Paramétereik előjele várhatóan pozitív, mivel minél nagyobb egy ország népessége, annál több potenciális Erasmus-hallgatóval rendelkezik, illetve annál több olyan egyetem lehet az országban, ami képes külföldi hallgatókat fogadni [36]. Az adatokat a World Bank adatbázisából nyertük ki [43].…”