Toward a common market in residency: international migration and regional integration

Abstract

This paper further develops models of regional migration, particularly in continents integrating regionally as it magnifies the importance of immigrant behavior for economists and policy-makers. I outline the history of migration research and the gravity model. From there, I develop six models to look at the impact of macroeconomics, organization memberships, language, communication/technology, and policy on migrant flows and stocks in Europe and South America. I use Fixed Effects and Tobit and OLS models. The effects of organization membership are small but generally increase migration as do common spoken languages. Measures of technology and communication affect destination countries more than sources, and maintain significance when estimated simultaneously. Immigration policy significantly affects migration patterns but is plagued with questions of causality and further research is needed. A combination model is then fitted and it performs well enough with European data to be of possible use to policy makers.