Recent studies find that observational returns to rural-urban migration are near zero in three developing countries. We revisit this result using panel tracking surveys from six countries, finding higher returns on average. We then interpret these returns in a multi-region Roy model with...

This paper examines the impact of temperature changes on rural-urban migration using a 56km×56km grid cell level dataset covering the whole world at 10-year frequency during the period 1970-2000. We find that rising temperatures reduce rural-urban migration in poor countries and increase such...

Using newly available data, we document that internal migrants do not enjoy the same access to local public goods and services as city residents in China. We estimate a spatial overlapping generations model with heterogeneous households to quantify the impact of the Hukou system on urban fiscal...

Allowing migration activity as an integral part of demographic transition and economic development, we establish a locational quantity-quality trade-off of children and explore its macroeconomic consequences. We construct a dynamic competitive migration equilibrium framework with rural agents...

This paper uses a dynamic competitive spatial equilibrium framework to evaluate the contribution of rural-urban migration induced by structural transformation to the behavior of Chinese housing markets. In the model, technological progress drives workers facing heterogeneous mobility costs to...

China strongly restricts rural-rural, urban-urban, and rural-urban migration. The result which this paper documents is a surplus of labor in agriculture. However, the paper argues that these restrictions also lead to insufficient agglomeration of economic activity within both rural industrial...

This paper studies the welfare effects of encouraging rural-urban migration in the developing world. To do so, we build a dynamic incomplete-markets model of migration in which heterogenous agents face seasonal income fluctuations, stochastic income shocks, and disutility of migration that...

Observing rapid structural transformation accompanied by a continual process of rural to urban migration in many developing countries, we construct a micro founded dynamic framework to explore how important education-based migration is, as opposed to work-based migration, for economic...

This paper exploits two unique features of China's history to study the effects of access to internal migration: reforms to the household registration (hukou) system, and historical migration flows. We show that temporary migration due to a government policy called the "sent-down youth" (SDY)...

This article examines the long term physical and mental health effects of internal migration focusing on a relatively unique migration experience from Southern and Northeastern regions of Italy to Northwestern regions and to the region around Rome concentrated over a relatively short period from...