Are there electoral cycles of emigration? An empirical investigation based on European data
| Author | Paulo Reis Mourão,Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta,Salvatore Ercolano |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12421 |
Are there electoral cycles of emigration? An
empirical investigation based on European
data
Paulo Reis Mour~
ao*, Salvatore Ercolano** and Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta***
ABSTRACT
Economic literature suggests that economic factors and the availability of amenities act as
determinants of migration choices together with socio-demographic factors. Migration has also
been found to be the consequence of political instability. This article argues that specific politi-
cal events, i.e., democratic elections, may be linked to migration flows. By using European
data over the 1999-2012 time period, our system GMM estimations reveal that there is an emi-
gration political cycle across European democracies and across the young democracies of Cen-
tral and Eastern European countries. We observe that regular elections tend to diminish
emigration ratios, whereas endogenous elections have the opposite effect. These results suggest
special challenges for governments and oppositions, which are also discussed.
INTRODUCTION
What determines the choice to migrate? Over the last 40 years, potential answers to this question
have been proposed by many theoretical and empirical contributions (for an extensive review, see
Borjas, 1994; Bodvarsson and Van den Berg, 2009).
The early theoretical contributions that were developed by urban geographers during the first half
of the twentieth century (developed based on Newton’s law of gravity) tended to note that migra-
tion results from a sort of attraction between two places, which is proportional to their distances
and the sizes of their respective populations (Zipf, 1946).
Later, papers by neo-classical economists embraced the functionalist social theory (De Haas,
2011) and modified this early framework by suggesting a new methodological approach based on
individualism and on the assumptions of individuals’rationality, perfect information and autonomy
from social contexts. According to this perspective, migration results from individuals’rational
cost-benefit calculus based on the comparison of alternative places where incomes differ due to dis-
similarities in local labour market conditions (Harris and Todaro, 1970). Although essentially based
on the approach outlined above, other contributions broadened the analysis by considering that, in
addition to wages and unemployment, a large set of amenities are considered in the calculus of net
gains that result from migration (Gosnell and Abrams, 2011; Poston et al. 2009; Whisler et al.
2008; Tiebout 1956). Additionally, preferences for these amenities vary according to individual
profiles (Borjas 1987, 1991; Polachek and Horvath 1977).
* University of Minho, Braga
** Institute of Studies on Mediterranean Society, Naples
*** University of Naples L’Orientale
doi: 10.1111/imig.12421
©2017 The Authors
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 56 (3) 2018
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Overall, this research stream allowed the identification of a wide set of pull factors, namely, con-
ditions appreciated by people that may attract them to one territory, and push factors, such as con-
textual conditions that induce emigration from one place to another.
Among push factors, recent contributions highlight that political variables also play an important
role. Indeed, violent political crises, conflicts and instability frequently induce forced emigration
from one country, as demonstrated by a number of examples in African countries as well as in the
Middle East (Adepoju, 2004; Lindley, 2014; Mourao, 2015) and in some South American countries
(Lundquist and Massey, 2005). Contributions have also highlighted that in countries facing political
uncertainties, a lack of political confidence increases emigration propensity (Lam, 2002). The effect
of political factors in explaining emigration from non-conflictual and stable democratic contexts has
been only marginally investigated by the existing literature. Nevertheless, there are reasons to
believe that non-conflictual political events, such as elections, significantly affect citizens’ideologi-
cal well-being and their expectations regarding the future and therefore may induce emigration
intentions.
This article discusses three mechanisms that link (e)migration flows with electoral events. The
first mechanism relates to the conventional political business cycle, which suggests the existence of
better (macro)economic conditions before elections that reduce emigration rates in the pre-election
period. The second mechanism regards the “satisfaction effect”produced by electoral results –vot-
ers who become frustrated with electoral results tend to have higher stimuli to leave the area/mi-
grate, which generates changes in the emigration rate after elections. The third mechanism relates
to the management of self-expectations –as people tend to ‘wait and see’before elections, we also
expect a decrease in emigration flows before elections.
This article’s objective is to fill this gap in the literature by conceptually examining the link
between elections and emigration and by empirically investigating this link using data from Euro-
pean countries observed over the period 1999 to 2012. Therefore, one major novelty of this
research is its robust attempt to empirically test the existence of electoral cycles of migration across
Europe. Another major novelty relates to the alternative focus of this study on the sub-sample of
emerging economies, such as those from Central and Eastern European countries. Given the youth
of their democratic institutions and the significant flows observed after the fall of the Berlin Wall,
we sought to specifically examine these countries.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the literature that focuses
on the classical economic and socio-demographic determinants of migration choices and on the role
played by the availability of particular amenities discussed below. In the same section, the rationale
behind the idea that political elections trigger emigration is presented. Section 3 offers a brief
examination of the emigration data collected in Europe over recent years. This section also provides
an extensive illustration of data used in our empirical investigation and the descriptive analysis. In
this section, we also present the methodology adopted to investigate the existing link between elec-
tions and outward migration. Section 4 presents and discusses our results (including robustness
checks). Finally, section 5 concludes the article.
DO ELECTIONS AFFECT MIGRATION? A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
What determines migration? Economic factors, socio-demographic dimensions and
the availability of amenities
In economics, different branches of literature have studied the migration process. Due to the several
aspects that flow into this phenomenon, a single theory explaining migration is impossible accord-
ing to several scholars and probably also useless (de Haas, 2010).
6Mour~
ao, Ercolano and Gaeta
©2017 The Authors. International Migration ©2017 IOM
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