Economic and Family Determinants of Migration Dynamics

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的研究分析了个人迁移的决定，作为预期的终身效用最大化对感知到的收入差异的反应。最终目标（超出本申请中提出的工作）是建立一个综合框架，将生命周期移民的经济、家庭和社会决定因素纳入其中。我们试图应用这一框架，利用美国劳工统计局国家纵向调查项目1979年和1997年青年群体（NLSY79和NLSY97）的数据，对生命周期早期阶段的个人移民决策进行全面分析。然而，对于本应用程序中的研究，我们将集中分析NLSY79。该研究项目包括建立一个重复个体迁移决策（包括“继续迁移”和“反向迁移”决策）的动态模型，并在面板数据上对其进行估计。在初步工作中，我们已经建立了一个涵盖许多地点（如州）和许多时期（年）的模型，在计量经济学上是可行的，并且它足够灵活，可以考虑一些影响移民的主要背景因素，包括地点之间的距离和地点大小的差异。通过使用明确的动态迁移决策模型，我们可以更好地理解不同人口群体之间迁移行为的差异（包括婚姻和离婚的影响），以及经济环境变化引起的差异。一个主要的应用涉及分析各州之间福利待遇的差异所引起的移民动机，以及这些动机与最近联邦和州福利政策的变化有关的变化。我们的早期工作侧重于经济激励，下一个合乎逻辑的步骤是纳入家庭决定因素。本应用程序中提出的工作考虑了扩展，包括家庭形成和解散，兄弟姐妹的影响，以代理家庭网络，以及一个更丰富的搜索模型，区分就业和工资的影响。每个扩展都提出了独特的数据和建模（概念和计量）挑战。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): 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.