This paper investigates inter-municipal migration flows in Belgium using a Poisson gravity model. Besides distance, the model also includes municipal-specific factors as explanatory variables. The model is tested using aggregate, cross-sectional, data on migrations between the municipalities of the Belgian province of Limburg, over the period 1998-2003. The model assumes heterogeneity of the distance-deterrence effect. The model also accounts for unobserved origin/destination characteristics. To overcome the problem of under-determinacy, we use the method of Generalized Cross-Entropy estimation. A number of major findings stand out. Firstly, we find evidence of a "U-shaped" relationship between the distance-deterrence elasticity and distance, where the distance elasticity is smaller for short-distance moves. Secondly, distance between origin and destination reinforces (attenuates) the pull effect of local employment opportunities (amenities). This finding may indicating a shift in the composition of migration flows from residential migration to labor migration as distance increases. Finally, the spatial distribution of the net pull effects of unobserved factors seem to coincide with proximity to major roads and railway stations.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by European Regional Science Association in its series ERSA conference papers with number
ersa06p585.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Did you know? You can create a compilation of all publications of a group of people, say alumni of a program, your students or memers of an association.