Immigrants’ location choice in Belgium

Hubert Jayet, Glenn Rayp, Ilse Ruyssen and Nadiya Ukrayinchuk

No 2014004, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: This paper analyses migratory streams to Belgian municipalities between 1994-2007. The Belgian population register constitutes a rich and unique database of yearly migrant in inflows and stocks broken down by nationality, which allows us to empirically explain the location choice of immigrants at municipality level. Specifically, we aim at separating the network effect, captured by the number of previous arrivals, from other location-specific characteristics such as local labor or housing market conditions and the presence of public amenities. We expect labor and housing market variables to operate at different levels and develop a nested model of location choice in which an immigrant first chooses a broad area, roughly corresponding to a labor market, and subsequently chooses a municipality within this area. We find that the spatial repartition of immigrants in Belgium is determined by both network effects and local characteristics. The determinants of local attractiveness vary by nationality, as expected, but for all nationalities, they seem to dominate the impact of network effects.

Keywords: International migration; Location choice; Network effects; Nested logit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44
Date: 2014-01-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-eur, nep-geo, nep-int, nep-mig and nep-ure
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http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2014004.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Immigrants’ location choice in Belgium (2016)
Working Paper: Immigrants’ location choice in Belgium (2016)
Working Paper: Immigrants’ location choice in Belgium (2016)
Working Paper: Immigrants' location choice in Belgium (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:2014004

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