This paper examines the causal effects of air pollution on migration by exploiting a natural experiment in which desulfurization technologies were rapidly implemented in coal-burning power plants in the Czech Republic in the 1990s. These technologies substantially decreased air pollution levels...

This paper examines causal effects of air pollution on migration by exploiting a unique natural experiment of desulfurization of power plants in the region of North Bohemia in the Czech Republic after the fall of communism in 1989. The results based on a difference-in-difference estimator show...

Theory asserts that individuals' migration decisions depend more on their expectations about future income levels than on their current income levels. We find that the implementation of market-oriented reforms in post-communist countries, by forming good economic prospects, has reduced...

We analyse the impact of social capital on the willingness to migrate in 28 post-communist and five western European comparator countries using the Life in Transition Survey. We find substantially lower levels of professional social capital among the older cohorts in post-communist than in the...