The proposed research analyzes individual decisions to migrate as expected lifetime utility maximizing responses to perceived income differentials. The ultimate goal (beyond the work proposed in this application) is to develop an integrated framework incorporating economic, family and social determinants of life cycle migration. We seek to apply this framework to provide a comprehensive analysis of migration decisions of individuals in the early stages of the life cycle, using data from the 1979 and 1997 youth cohorts (NLSY79 and NLSY97) of the National Longitudinal Surveys Program at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, for research in this application we will concentrate our analysis on the NLSY79. The research project involves building a dynamic model of repeated individual migration decisions (including """"""""continuation migration"""""""" and """"""""reverse migration"""""""" decisions), and estimating it on panel data. In preliminary work, we have established that a model covering many locations (e.g. States) and many periods (years) is econometrically feasible, and that it is flexible enough to allow for some major background factors affecting migration, including distance between locations, and differences in location size. By using an explicit dynamic model of migration decisions we can better understand differences in migration behavior across different demographic groups (including the effects of marriage and divorce), as well as differences arising from changes in the economic environment. A leading application involves an analysis of incentives to migrate arising from inter-State differences in welfare benefits, and changes in these incentives associated with recent changes in federal and state welfare policies. Our early work focuses on economic incentives and the next logical step is to incorporate family determinants. Work proposed in this application considers extensions to include family formation and dissolution, the influence of siblings to proxy for family networks, as well as a richer search model that distinguishes between the influence of employment and wages. Each extension presents unique data and modeling (conceptual and econometric) challenges. ? ?
| Kennan, John; Walker, James R (2010) Wages, Welfare Benefits and Migration. J Econom 156:229-238 |
| Fortier, Sean; Yang, Xiaojie; Wang, Yi et al. (2009) Base excision repair in early zebrafish development: evidence for DNA polymerase switching and standby AP endonuclease activity. Biochemistry 48:5396-404 |
