Abstract
Cultural differences play an important role in shaping migration patterns. The conventional proxies for cross country cultural differences, such as common language; ethnicity; genetic traits; or religion, implicitly assume that cultural proximity between two countries is constant over time and symmetric. This is far from realistic. This paper proposes a gravity model for international migration which explicitly allows for the time varying and asymmetric dimensions of cultural proximity. In accordance with Disdier, Tai, Fontagné, Mayer (Rev World Econ, 145(4):575–595, 2010) we assume that the evolution of bilateral cultural affinity over time is reflected in the intensity of bilateral trade in cultural goods. The empirical framework includes a comprehensive set of high dimensional fixed effects which enable identification of the impact of cultural proximity on migration over and beyond the effect of pre-existing cultural and historical ties. The results are robust across different econometric techniques and suggest that positive changes in cultural relationships over time foster bilateral migration.
Highlights
Harris and Todaro (1970) interprets migration flows in terms of the wage differential between sending and destination countries and the associated cost of the journey
Our contribution adds to the extensive literature on the determinants of international migration, which uses gravity models as the main empirical workhorse to identify the effect of those origin, destination and dyadic factors affecting migration decisions
Income per capita at destination is confirmed as an important driver of migration flows, while the network effect is positive and its magnitude is in line with previous studies
Summary
Harris and Todaro (1970) interprets migration flows in terms of the wage differential between sending and destination countries and the associated cost of the journey. These “shocks” to bilateral cultural proximity affect the migration choice as, for any given country of origin, they alter the distribution of relative cultural affinity towards potential destinations To date, this is the first analysis exploring the relationship between cultural proximity and migration, which fully accounts for the time varying and asymmetric nature of VACP. We show that a shock in terms of changing cultural proximity has a much stronger effect on culturally distant country pairs and when the long-lasting effect of cultural goods in favoring cross-cultural convergence is accounted for Taken together, these findings suggest a non-linear effect of cultural proximity on migration over pre-existing cultural ties and the potential (positive) role of trade integration in cultural products in promoting cultural alignment between origin and destination countries.
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