According to the "welfare magnet" hypothesis, migrants with a high likelihood of claiming benefits cluster in the most generous welfare systems. After the introduction of the freedom of movement for Eastern European workers, EU-15 countries can thus be expected to reduce public benefits in order...

We analyze the effects of governmental redistribution of income on migration patterns,using an Italian administrative dataset that includes information on almost every Italian citizen living abroad. Since Italy takes a middle ground in terms of redistribution, both the welfare-magnet effect from...

Brexit - the United Kingdom leaving the European Union - continues to create an unpredictable social and political landscape. Uncertainty and perceptions are influential drivers when it comes to migration decisions, and yet, the literature's inference typically relies on individual-level data....

City-level policies often aim at attracting skilled workers by improving urban amenities. However, due to endogeneity problems, studies relying on revealed preferences have difficulties in providing evidence for the basic premise that skilled workers place a higher value on urban amenities than...