The role of intergenerational mobility in internal migration

Jun Sung Kim and Jongkwan Lee

Economic Modelling, 2019, vol. 81, issue C, 1-15

Abstract: This paper investigates the role of intergenerational mobility in the internal migration decisions of families. The geographic variation in intergenerational mobility suggests that if parents value their children's human capital accumulation and future outcomes, they would have an incentive to move to areas with a higher upward mobility. To identify the effect of intergenerational mobility on family migration, we first use an instrumental variable approach, based on a heteroskedastic covariance restriction, which addresses measurement-error and omitted-variable biases. Then, we apply the semiparametric maximum score estimation method to our empirical model, which yields a consistent estimator when families' choice sets are partially observed. We find that highly educated families with school-aged children choose areas that favor upward mobility. Our welfare analysis indicates that a unit increase in the absolute upward mobility of a commuting zone is equivalent to approximately a $722 higher mean wage in the local labor market.

Keywords: Internal migration; Intergenerational mobility; Commuting zones; Location choice; Semiparametric multinomial choice model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 D10 J62 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:81:y:2019:i:c:p:1-15

DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2018.12.001

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