Do Institutions Play a Role in Skilled Migration? The Case of Italy

Regional Studies. This paper is based on the idea that the migration choices of the highly skilled are driven by the search for favourable socio-economic contexts able to ensure higher income, better employment opportunities but also better institutions. By using data on a sample of 47 300 Italian graduates, the impact of provincial institution quality on the probability of resident graduates migrating is studied. A Heckman probit estimation indicates that institutions do matter for migration decisions and their importance is comparable with that of per capita income provincial differences.