Regional migration in Spain: The effect of personal characteristics and of unemployment, wage and house price differentials using pooled cross-sections

We present an empirical model of individual migration using time-series of cross-sections from the Spanish Labour Force Surveys 1987-1991. Personal characteristics not only have an important direct effect on migration decisions but also alter the effect of regional variables, We find that the estimated probability of migration for the unemployed not registered, who are known for certain not to receive benefit, is higher than that of the employed which in turn is higher than that of the unemployed registered, which includes all the benefits recipients. An important finding is that the effect of regional unemployment on migration is positive for the unemployed not registered but is important and negative for those registered.