Economic and Family Determinants of Migration Dynamics

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的研究分析个人决定迁移预期的终身效用最大化的反应，感知收入差距。最终目标（超出本申请书所提议的工作）是制定一个综合框架，将生命周期移徙的经济、家庭和社会决定因素纳入其中。我们试图应用这一框架，提供一个全面的分析个人在生命周期的早期阶段的移民决定，使用的数据从1979年和1997年的青年队列（NLSY 79和NLSY 97）的国家纵向调查计划在劳工统计局。然而，对于本应用的研究，我们将集中分析NLSY 79。本研究项目涉及建立一个重复的个人迁移决策（包括“继续迁移”和“反向迁移”决策）的动态模型，并根据面板数据进行估计。在初步工作中，我们已经确定，一个涵盖许多地点（如国家）和许多时期（年）的模型在计量经济学上是可行的，而且它足够灵活，可以考虑到一些影响移徙的主要背景因素，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，我们可以更好地了解不同人口群体的迁移行为差异（包括结婚和离婚的影响），以及经济环境变化带来的差异。一项主要的应用涉及分析因国家间福利差异而产生的移徙动机，以及与最近联邦和州福利政策变化有关的这些动机的变化。 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因素。在这个应用程序中提出的工作考虑扩展，包括家庭的形成和解散，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。每个扩展都带来了独特的数据和建模（概念和计量经济学）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.