Research

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of migration, focusing on the relevance of national level indicators on the International Migrant Stock. I implement an econometric model over cross-sectional data for 2015 on territories included in the World Bank databases. I find that higher income per capita, less time required to start a business and more control of corruption are positive factors on the international migrant stock. A country more culturally diverse is related to higher migrant levels, Democracy is significant for the models; however, its coefficient is negative, which is contradictory with literature on migration. With more complex functional forms, I discover that countries located in Middle East and North Africa, have higher migration flows yet lower democracy scores. When analyzing democracy in the western hemisphere, it is found that the effect is positive on migration, but just for countries with an income per capita approximately over 28K USD. Democracy is likely endogenous and calls for further investigation for its unbiased estimation.