The effect of education on migration: Evidence from school reform

Böckerman, Petri and Haapanen, Mika (2010): The effect of education on migration: Evidence from school reform.

Abstract

A polytechnic, higher education reform took place in Finland in the 1990s. It gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics and expanded higher education to all Finnish regions. We implement instrumental variables estimators that exploit the exogenous variation in the regional availability of polytechnic education together with matriculation exam scores. Our IV results show that polytechnic graduates have a higher migration probability than those of vocational college graduates. However, a master’s degree did not increase migration propensity in comparison with a polytechnic degree. We also find that an increase in the availability of polytechnic education did not reduce migration.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Migration; higher education; polytechnic reform; IV estimation
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I20 - General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J10 - General; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers > J61 - Geographic Labor Mobility ; Immigrant Workers; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R2 - Household Analysis > R23 - Regional Migration ; Regional Labor Markets ; Population ; Neighborhood Characteristics

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