Explaining interregional migration trends in developed countries: a regional perspective

The goal of this paper is to determine the role of economic and sociodemographic changes in driving trends in interregional migration rates in developed countries. Regional-level annual panel data of bilateral migration, economic and sociodemographic factors for a sample of eight European and non-European developed countries (2000–2019) are used to estimate dynamic heterogeneous and cross-sectionally augmented distributed lag panel regressions. Results reveal country-specific contributions of aggregate economic and sociodemographic transformations are a consequence of within-country heterogeneous temporal variations and origin–destination long-run linkages with bilateral migration flows. The findings emphasize the key role of economic and sociodemographic spatiotemporal variations on long-run overall interregional migration through spatially reconfiguring attractiveness and populations' migratory propensity and offer an explanation for the puzzling cross-country heterogeneity in interregional migration trends among countries with comparable national economic and sociodemographic transformations.