International Market Access and Internal Migration.
with Rodrigo Paillacar
This paper studies the role of international trade in internal migration patterns. Using regional differences in access to international markets, we analyze bilateral migration between 26 Brazilian states. Bilateral migration rates are obtained from household survey data for the years 1993 to 2003. Our findings highlight the importance of external factors, in this case the demand from other countries, in the shaping of domestic migration patterns. Results show that workers migrate to states with higher market access, where higher labor demand leads to better job opportunities. These findings are robust to the control for self-selected migration, the introduction of regional wages, and other control variables. A comparison of migration determinants between different educational levels indicates that international market access plays a more important role for less educated workers.