Migration and Regional Convergence: An Empirical Investigation for Turkey

Kirdar, Murat and Saracoglu, Sirin (2007): Migration and Regional Convergence: An Empirical Investigation for Turkey. Unpublished.

Abstract

The standard growth model predicts that allowing for labor mobility across regions would increase the speed of convergence in per capita income levels and that migration has a negative causal impact on regional growth rates. Although the empirical literature has uncovered some evidence for the former implication, the latter has not been verified empirically. This paper provides empirical evidence for the negative causal impact of migration on provincial growth rates in a developing country with a high level of internal migration that is characterized by unskilled labor exiting rural areas for urban centers. We utilize an instrumental variables estimation method with an instrument unique to the country examined, and we also control for provincial fixed effects.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Institution: Middle East Technical University
• Language: English
• Keywords: Regional convergence; Regional growth; Internal migration; Fixed effects; IV estimation
• Subjects: O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O40 - General; R - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics > R2 - Household Analysis > R23 - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics

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