THE DETERMINANTS OF THE RECENT INTERREGIONAL MIGRATION FLOWS IN ITALY: A PANEL DATA ANALYSIS*

ABSTRACT This study investigates the determinants of interregional migration flows in Italy in the light of the upsurge occurred in 1996, after two decades of decreasing internal migration rates. The fixed‐effect vector decomposition estimator (FEVD) is applied to a gravity model using bilateral migration flows for the period 1996–2005. It is shown that the FEVD improves the estimates with respect to the traditional panel data estimators. The GDP per capita and the unemployment rate appear to be the key determinants whose changes push migrants out from their regions and direct them to “better off” destinations. Migrants leaving the regions in the Center‐North respond differently to the push and pull forces compared to southern migrants. The dynamic model provides evidence for the presence of social networks, which in this analysis take place for each pair of regions.