This paper investigates the economic, labour market and institutional factors that make regions and countries attractive for
highly skilled migrants vis-à-vis low-skill migrants. Based on micro-data for 11 EU countries, a discrete choice model estimated
at the NUTS-2 level shows that location decisions are not only determined by factors related to earnings opportunities, distance,
networks, common language and colonial relationships, but also by institutional factors such as migration policy, the income
tax system, or labour market institutions. It also lends some support to the welfare magnet hypothesis: a higher unemployment
replacement rate increases the attractiveness of a country. The empirical analysis however reveals only minor differences
in the effects of institutions on location decisions by skill level, limiting the scope for policy makers to affect the skill
composition of migration.
Forschungsbereich:Regionalökonomie und räumliche Analyse