Specification of Functional Form in Models of Population Migration

A characteristic of the empirical literature on internal population migration is widely varying results and often conflicting conclusions regarding relative importance of explanatory factors. There are a number of possible explanations for these conflicting findings, some of which have received little attention in the literature. This paper focuses on one major specification issue in the context of an aggregate migration model: choice of functional form. The discussion lays out a theoretical basis for choosing functional form. It follows this with a comparison of empirical results for several functional forms. Statistical tests are used to choose the most appropriate functional form.