Table Of ContentSTUDIES IN URBAN ECONOMICS
Under the Editorship of
Edwin S. Mills
Princeton University
Norman J. Glickman. ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF REGIONAL SYS-
TEMS: Explorations in Model Building and Policy Analysis
J. Vernon Henderson. ECONOMIC THEORY AND THE CITIES
Norman J. Glickman. THE GROWTH AND MANAGEMENT OF THE
JAPANESE URBAN SYSTEM
George S. Tolley, Philip E. Graves, and John L. Gardner, URBAN GROWTH
POLICY IN A MARKET ECONOMY
David Segal (Ed.). THE ECONOMICS OF NEIGHBORHOOD
R. D. Norton. CITY LIFE-CYCLES AND AMERICAN URBAN POLICY
John F. McDonald. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF AN URBAN
HOUSING MARKET
Daniel Feenberg and Edwin S. Mills. MEASURING THE BENEFITS OF
WATER POLLUTION ABATEMENT
Michael J. Greenwood. MIGRATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN
THE UNITED STATES: National, Regional, and Metropolitan Per-
spectives
Takahiro Miyao. DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF THE URBAN ECONOMY
Katharine L. Bradbury, Anthony Downs, and Kenneth A. Small. FUTURES
FOR A DECLINING CITY: Simulations for the Cleveland Area
Charles F. Mueller. THE ECONOMICS OF LABOR MIGRATION: A
Behavioral Analysis
In Preparation
Douglas B. Diamond, Jr. and George S. Tolley (Eds.). THE ECONOMICS
OF URBAN AMENITIES
The Economics of Labor Migration
A BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS
CHARLES F. MUELLER
The Planning Economics Group—Boston
Woburn, Massachusetts
ACADEMIC PRESS
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United Kingdom Edition published by
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD.
24/28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DX
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Mueller, Charles F. (Charles Francis)
The economics of labor migration.
(Studies in urban economics)
Bibliography : p.
Includes index.
1. Labor mobility. 2. Emigration and immigration.
3. Migration, Internal. I. Title. II. Series.
HD5717.M83 331.12'79 81-19046
ISBN 0-12-509580-5 AACR2
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
82 83 84 85 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Mother and Father
List of Tables
Table 2.1. Summary of Inmigration Models 24
Table 2.2. Summary of Outmigration Models 36
Table 2.3. Summary of Place-to-Place Models 56
Table 4.1. Deletions from LEED File and Reasons for Deletion 98
Table 4.2. Demographic Characteristics of LEED File and
Selected Sample 99
Table 4.3. Demographic Characteristics of the Sample,
Nonmigrants, and Migrants 99
Table 4.4. Age Distribution (Percentage) by Race, Sex, and
Migrant Status 101
Table 4.5. Income Distribution (Percentage) by Race, Sex, and
Migrant Status 103
Table 4.6. Industrial Tenure (Percentage Distribution) by Race,
Sex, and Migrant Status 104
Table 4.7. Job Tenure (Percentage Distribution) by Race, Sex,
and Migrant Status 105
Table 4.8. Length of Residency (Percentage Distribution) by
Race, Sex, and Migrant Status 106
Table 4.9. Job Turnover (Percentage) by Race, Sex, and
Migrant Status 107
Table 4.10. Geographic Distribution (Percentage) by Race, Sex,
and Migrant Status 110
ix
X List of Tables
Table 4.11. Coverage Ratio of the Sample to the Population by
Geographic Area 112
Table 4.12. Migration Rates by Age, by Sex and Race 113
Table 4.13. Migration Rates by Income, by Sex and Race 116
Table 4.14. Migration Rates by Job Tenure, by Sex and Race 117
Table 4.15. Migration Rates by Industrial Tenure, by Sex
and Race 117
Table 4.16. Migration Rates by Length of Residency, by Sex
and Race 118
Table 4.17. Migration Rates by Job Turnover, by Sex and Race 118
Table 4.18. Migration Rates by State, by Sex and Race 122
Table 5.1. Variable Description 127
Table 5.2. Estimates for the Migratory Choice Model: All
Potential Migrants 136
Table 5.3. Estimates for the Migratory Choice Model: Whites
and Nonwhites 140
Table 5.4. Estimates for the Migratory Choice Model: Males
and Females 142
Table 5.5. Estimates for the Migratory Choice Model: Low
Incomes and High Incomes 144
Table 6.1. Condition Indexes and Variance-Component
Percentages, Unrestricted Model 152
Table A.1. Estimates of the Migratory Choice Model and of
Restricted Models 166
Table A.2. Condition Indexes and Variance-Component
Percentages, Restricted Model: ER2 Omitted 168
Table A.3. Condition Indexes and Variance-Component
Percentages, Restricted Model: ER2, UH2 Omitted 170
Table A.4. Condition Indexes and Variance-Component
Percentages, Restricted Model: ER2, UH2,
AP2 Omitted 172
Table A.5. Condition Indexes and Variance-Component
Percentages, Restricted Model: ER2, UH2, AP2,
OH2 Omitted 174
Table A.6. Condition Indexes and Variance-Component
Percentages, Restricted Model: ER2, UH2, AP2,
OH2, WFW2 Omitted 176
Table A.7. Condition Indexes and Variance-Component
Percentages, Restricted Model: ER2, UH2, AP2,
OH2, WFW2, P502 Omitted 178
Table A.8. Condition Indexes and Variance-Component
Percentages, Restricted Model: ER2, UH2, AP2,
OH2, WFW2, P502, DN2 Omitted 180
Table A.9. Condition Indexes and Variance-Component
Percentages, Restricted Model: ER2, UH2, AP2,
OH2, WFW2, P502, DN2, DO Omitted 182
Preface
While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathemat-
ical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can
say with precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages
remain constant [Sherlock Holmes in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four].
This book deals with one important aspect of the interrelationship between
migration and regional economic growth: the worker's decision to migrate.
With equally important goals of providing a logic of inquiry to the migration
decision and exploring that logic empirically, the book has four objectives.
The first is the development of a decision model of migration that has roles for
economic gains, amenities, separation costs, and uncertainty and that consid-
ers the trade-offs between alternative destinations as well as between the ori-
gin and the actual destination. The second is the assessment of previous mi-
gration studies that furnish a perspective on our approach to the migration
decision. Third, the migration behavior of workers is evaluated empirically in
light of our decision model using recently developed estimation techniques
suitable to analyzing disaggregate choice behavior. The fourth objective is to
assess the ability of the data used in the empirical analysis to shed light on sep-
arate hypotheses. Together, these objectives represent a thorough application
of theoretical and empirical procedures to the analysis and understanding of an
important social phenomenon.
xi
xii Preface
The book serves as a useful text and reference to scholars of migration in the
disciplines of economics, sociology, demography, geography, and regional
science as well as to practitioners in private industry and government whose
difficult task it is to account for migration. And since this study applies empir-
ical techniques associated with qualitative choice analysis and collinearity di-
agnostics, it has value as a collateral reference for courses in applied
econometrics in addition to urban, regional, and labor economics.
The organization of the book parallels its objectives. The review of previous
studies on the determinants of interregional migration and geographic mobil-
ity is the subject of Chapter 2. In Chapter 3,1 develop the theoretical model of
the migration decision and specialize it to an empirical multinomial logit
model. The judgments used in developing a data base suitable for estimation
purposes and the aggregate characteristics of the sample of workers is pres-
ented in Chapter 4. The estimation results are discussed in Chapter 5. In Chap-
ter 6, the conditioning of the data is evaluated using collinearity diagnostics
that identify sources of collinearity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is largely drawn from my Ph.D. dissertation at Boston College, a
co-winner of the 1980 Irving Fisher Award. I am especially grateful to Marvin
Kraus who, as my dissertation advisor, was a skillful and consistent sounding
board and a careful reader of the earlier drafts of the manuscript. I am grateful
as well to David Belsley, Robert Wallace, and Geoffrey Woglom for their val-
uable comments on early drafts. James Freund, James Kneafsey, and Steven
Lerman have made helpful suggestions on certain aspects of this study.
The data analysis undertaken herein was considerable, and I acknowledge
the computing support of the Boston College Computer Center. Special
thanks are due to Laura Appleton, George Hetrick, and James Kidd for their
programming assistance.
I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Advanced Study Pro-
gram of the Brookings Institution, where I completed the manuscript. Finally,
The Planning Economics Group, Boston, has supported the preparation of the
manuscript, and Rick Lesaar has been especially helpful in monitoring the
preparation of the various drafts.
C.F.M.
Brookline, Massachusetts
xii Preface
The book serves as a useful text and reference to scholars of migration in the
disciplines of economics, sociology, demography, geography, and regional
science as well as to practitioners in private industry and government whose
difficult task it is to account for migration. And since this study applies empir-
ical techniques associated with qualitative choice analysis and collinearity di-
agnostics, it has value as a collateral reference for courses in applied
econometrics in addition to urban, regional, and labor economics.
The organization of the book parallels its objectives. The review of previous
studies on the determinants of interregional migration and geographic mobil-
ity is the subject of Chapter 2. In Chapter 3,1 develop the theoretical model of
the migration decision and specialize it to an empirical multinomial logit
model. The judgments used in developing a data base suitable for estimation
purposes and the aggregate characteristics of the sample of workers is pres-
ented in Chapter 4. The estimation results are discussed in Chapter 5. In Chap-
ter 6, the conditioning of the data is evaluated using collinearity diagnostics
that identify sources of collinearity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is largely drawn from my Ph.D. dissertation at Boston College, a
co-winner of the 1980 Irving Fisher Award. I am especially grateful to Marvin
Kraus who, as my dissertation advisor, was a skillful and consistent sounding
board and a careful reader of the earlier drafts of the manuscript. I am grateful
as well to David Belsley, Robert Wallace, and Geoffrey Woglom for their val-
uable comments on early drafts. James Freund, James Kneafsey, and Steven
Lerman have made helpful suggestions on certain aspects of this study.
The data analysis undertaken herein was considerable, and I acknowledge
the computing support of the Boston College Computer Center. Special
thanks are due to Laura Appleton, George Hetrick, and James Kidd for their
programming assistance.
I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Advanced Study Pro-
gram of the Brookings Institution, where I completed the manuscript. Finally,
The Planning Economics Group, Boston, has supported the preparation of the
manuscript, and Rick Lesaar has been especially helpful in monitoring the
preparation of the various drafts.
C.F.M.
Brookline, Massachusetts
1
Introduction
Only recently have those interested in the growth and welfare of local
areas begun to understand the interrelationship among population
changes, economic conditions, and regional development policy. The
process of migration is an essential key to the interrelationship. It both is
affected by and causes changes in local populations and economic con-
ditions. The purpose of this research is to investigate one important aspect
of this interrelationship: the worker's decision to migrate.
The conventional wisdom concerning migration decisions is that they
bring about movements that enhance public welfare. That is, migration is
an equilibrating adjustment mechanism that shifts local labor market sup-
plies from areas where labor is underemployed to areas in which it could
be fully employed. Even if we grant, for the moment, that this is indeed
the direction of movement, there are possible consequences of such
movement that can conflict with the popular wisdom of enhancing public
welfare.1 Potential conflicts arise because migration can affect the growth
prospects of both the sending and receiving areas.2 For example, suppose
that the sending areas are depressed whereas the receiving areas are pros-
perous. There is evidence indicating that such migrants possess attractive
1 For a detailed discussion, see Morrison (1972b).
2 The characterization can be appropriate to both interarea and intraarea migration. In the
case of intraarea migration, consider the movement from central cities to suburban areas.
1
