Modelling Causes and Consequences

There is an extensive literature on the causes and consequences of migration, which identifies a wide range of economic, social and political factors of importance. However, in terms of formal economic modelling of these linkages, the existing literature also highlights the causality or ‘endogeneity’ problems embedded in poverty-migration linkages. This relates to the impact that migration can have on improving or deteriorating welfare for migrants and non-migrants at destination and source over time. Poverty may induce people to migrate in order to improve their livelihoods but may in turn result in them becoming further impoverished and more vulnerable.

In this context, on-going work at the centre stresses the need to analyse poverty and decisions about mobility within a dynamic framework of social networks, gender relations and economic and political constraints. We aim to link these choices and frameworks to outcomes by using available economic and demographic data where it exists and new studies where necessary.

So far, two key datasets have been used in our modelling work: first, the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS), which in the case of Albania in particular has a large module on migration; and second, a bespoke survey on migration collected by the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographics Institute (NIDI) in Ghana, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal and Turkey, as well as in the European receiving states of Spain and Italy.