Tell Me Where You Would Like to Go and I Tell You Why - Potential Migration and Subjective Well-Being

26 Pages Posted: 24 Mar 2013

Date Written: March 21, 2013

Abstract

By examining the preferences over migration destinations of those revealing a desire to permanently leave their country, this paper provides new evidence on the relevance of subjective measures for cross country comparisons. While hard statistics such as GDP per capita and unemployment rates are commonly used to measure a country success, this analysis reveals that people preferences over alternative migration destinations are better explained by average levels of life satisfaction in the destination country. Aggregated measures of subjective well-being are, therefore, useful for international comparisons as they better reflect what makes some countries more attractive than others.

Keywords: subjective well-being, intention to migrate, migration destinations, Europe

JEL Classification: F22, I30

Suggested Citation

Lovo, Stefania, Tell Me Where You Would Like to Go and I Tell You Why - Potential Migration and Subjective Well-Being (March 21, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2237537 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2237537

Stefania Lovo (Contact Author)

University of Reading ( email )

Whiteknights
Reading, Berkshire RG6 6AH
United Kingdom

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
63
Abstract Views
651
Rank
628,038
PlumX Metrics