Turkey and the European Union: Possible Incidence of the EU Accession on Migration Flows

This paper analyzes possible incidence of Turkish EU accession on the emigration from Turkey to the European Union. Panel data estimators are applied on the emigration data from EU-18 into Germany in order to construct possible future scenarios of Turkish migration to the EU. Eventual migration flows from Turkey into the EU are forecasted based on the estimated results. We find that seemingly unrelated regressor is the most efficient estimator that can be applied in Turkey-EU migration framework. Our results reveal that both the network effect and target country labour market conditions represent the strongest determinants for migration, whilst the effect of per capita income is actually relatively low. In particular, Turkish per capita income does not have nearly any effect on migration, because it enters the model in two variables that work against each other. Furthermore, a very low importance of opening the German labour market for Turkish migrants is found. Estimated coefficients are used to predict migrations to Germany, and through appropriate extrapolations to the whole European Union (EU). Three scenarios of migration are created and the sensitivity of estimated coefficients on migration from Turkey into the Germany during next 25 years is further discussed in detail.