Academic Convergence and Migration: the effect of the BolognaProcess on European Mobility

This paper investigates the effects of the Bologna Process on migration inflows within European countries between 2004 and 2017. To this aim, we rely on a large panel of bilateral flows between most of the European countries, and use several estimators. Our results show that the Bologna Process has a limited, when significant, impact on migration in Europe. Its effect is mostly visible in destination countries but is extremely weak when we focus on the implementation in origin countries. When detected, the effect of the Bologna Process is growing following its implementation. In contrast, Diasporas are important in explaining flows between countries. We also find that traditional variables such as common language and distance may not be as relevant as before in studying intra-European flows. Finally, we notice an unexpected negative effect of the adoption of the Euro.