Semiparametric analysis of German East–West migration intentions: facts and theory

✍ Scribed by Michael C. Burda; Wolfgang Härdle; Marlene Müller; Axel Werwatz

• Book ID: 101285637
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 222 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0883-7252
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1255(1998090)13:5<525::aid-jae508>3.0.co;2-c

✦ Synopsis

East±West migration in Germany peaked at the beginning of the 1990s although the average wage gap between Eastern and Western Germany continues to average about 25%. We analyse the propensity to migrate using microdata from the German Socioeconomic Panel. Fitting a parametric Generalized Linear Model (GLM) yields non-linear residual behavior. This ®nding is not compatible with classical Marshallian theory of migration and motivates the semiparametric analysis. We estimate a Generalized Partial Linear Model (GPLM) where some components of the index of explanatory variables enter non-parametrically. We ®nd the estimate of the non-parametric in¯uence in concordance with a number of alternative migration theories, including the recently proposed option-value-of-waiting theory.