Pushing and Pulling: Determinants of Migration During Sweden’s Industrialisation

Björn Eriksson , Lund University
Siddartha Aradhya, Lund University
Finn Hedefalk

This paper seeks to improve on past studies through the use of new data and a more comprehensive empirical migration model. We consider internal migration within Sweden between 1880-1890 together with emigration to the US. We contribute to the literature by modelling the complete migration decision at the individual level, considering both the decision between staying and migrating and the subsequent destination choice. To account for the fact that destination choice is nested within the migration branch of the decision tree, thus making destination choice conditional on migration, we employ the utility maximizing nested logit model developed by McFadden (1978; 1981, 1984). Our methodological approach facilitates simultaneous modelling of the migration decision and the destination choice. We are thus able to estimate push and pull factors as part of one individual utility maximizing decision, and not separately as normally done.

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 Presented in Session 7. Migration & Urbanization