The role of urbanisation on international migrations: a case study of EU and ENP countries

Abstract

This article estimates the impact of the urbanisation rates as pull factor of international migration between the European Union and the countries involved in the European Neighbouring Policy. The 1970-2000 period was investigated by using a gravitational model and estimates were obtained by using a a wide fixed-effects structure. The main finding was that changes in urbanisation matter more as a pull factor than changes in GDP per capita. This may be linked to the existence of greater opportunities arising in growing cities and to the fact that in the period of analysis these opportunities had been more important in small and medium sized cities than in large cities. In addition, it appears that immigrants not only look for monetary outcomes by migrating, but also cue on non-economic territorial features.

Internal migration in a developing country: A panel data analysis of Ecuador (1982–2010)

“…One issue not covered in the theoretical approach of the model presented here is the selection of deterministic factors for the function of the utility of individuals. In the empirical literature, the most common aspects are pull factors and opportunities to earn an income at the destination (Mayda ), the gap in income per capita between the origin and the destination (Ortega and Peri ), the population in the place of origin and the income at the destinations (Karemera et al ), differences in terms of quality of life (Faggian and Royuela ), and the level of urbanization (Royuela ). Given the assumption of normalization in the utility at origin, the deterministic component of utility in the empirical model measures the effect of increasing the gap in expected benefits between the origin and destination.…”

Graduate migration in Spain: the impact of the Great Recession on a low-mobility country

“…The empirical model is grounded on the random utility maximization theoretical model, based on differences in economic expectations between the origin and destination 5 . With this model, as applied in a vast empirical literature such as Beine et al (2013), Bertoli et al (2013), Izquierdo et al (2014) and Royuela (2015), we seek to explain the log of emigrants as a function of the differential between origin (Spain) and destination (19 OECD countries) in terms of income and/or unemployment. In order to account for additional factors we include in the estimation country and time fixed effects:…”

Migration, human capital and social capital: lessons for the EU neighbouring countries

“…Few works have analysed the role of urbanisation on international migration flows and Royuela (2015) estimates a gravity model considering migrations flows to and from 197 countries covering the period running from 1960 to 2000. He finds that increasing urbanisation matters more as a pull factor than improvements in GDP per capita.…”