Shaped by Urban-Rural Divide and Skill: the Drivers of Internal Mobility in Italy

Angela S. Bergantino (), Antonello Clemente (), Stefano Iandolo () and Riccardo Turati
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Angela S. Bergantino: Department of Economics, Management and Business Law, University of Bari, Italy & Laboratory of Applied Economics (LEA), Italy.
Antonello Clemente: Department of Economics, Management and Business Law, University of Bari, Italy & Laboratory of Applied Economics (LEA), Italy
Stefano Iandolo: Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Salerno, Italy

Working Papers from Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona

Abstract: This paper examines the evolution and determinants of skill-specific internal mobility among Italian citizens by urban–rural origin. Using administrative data from the Registry of Trans- fer of Residence (ADELE), which records the universe of skill-specific bilateral moves across more than 700 millions potential municipality pairs between 2012 and 2022, we document distinct trends in residential mobility for college-educated and non-college-educated citi- zens. We then assess the role of economic and non-economic factors in shaping these flows, employing a Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator with an extensive set of destination and origin-by-nest fixed effects. Our findings show that low-skilled movers respond more strongly to economic factors, while high-skilled movers are respond more to non-economic ones, with the urban–rural divide at origin amplifying these differences. More- over, we find that after the COVID-19 pandemic, economic drivers became less relevant, whereas non-economic factors gained importance. Overall, this study highlights that, simi- lar to international migration, the drivers of internal mobility are inherently skill-specific.

Keywords: Migration; Human Capital; Urban-Rural; Italy; COVID-19. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2025-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
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Related works:
Working Paper: Shaped by Urban-Rural Divide and Skill: The Drivers of Internal Mobility in Italy (2025)
Working Paper: Shaped by Urban-Rural Divide and Skill: the Drivers of Internal Mobility in Italy (2025)
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