Friendship Ties and Geographical Mobility: Evidence from the BHPS

Michèle Belot and John Ermisch

No 2209, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: A common finding in analyses of geographic mobility is a strong association between past movement and current mobility, a phenomenon that has given rise to the so called ‘mover-stayer model’. We argue in this paper that one of the driving forces behind this heterogeneity is the strength of local social ties. We use data from the BHPS on the location of the three closest friends and the frequency of contacts. We estimate the processes of friendship formation and residential mobility jointly, allowing for correlation between the two processes. Our results show that the location of the closest friends matters substantially in the mobility decision, and matters more than the frequency of contacts.

Keywords: friendship formation; social ties; geographical mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J61 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2006-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-lab, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

Published - published in: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society), 2009, 172 (2), 427-442

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Working Paper: Friendship ties and geographical mobility: evidence from the BHPS (2006)
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