How do internal migration by educational attainment react to regional unbalances? The case of Italy.

Romano Piras, Università di Cagliari

We conduct an empirical investigation of the determinants of migration flows across Italian regions taking explicitly into account the educational attainment of migrants. We follow the standard macroeconomic migration theory where net migration depends on regional per capita GDP and unemployment differentials. Empirical results are similar at lower and upper-secondary educational level, for which internal migration is explained quite well by our model. Migration rates for primary school and university level educational attainment seems to respond mainly to relative regional per capita GDP rather than unemployment differentials.