Abstract

The economics of migration are a field that has grown in recent years. Nevertheless, case studies on specific instances of domestic migration are rather scarce. This research explores the relation between internal migration and fluctuations in the housing market, with a focus on the case of Spain. More specifically, the aim of this paper is to asses how interprovincial migration is affecting prices in real estate markets in the regional economies of Spain during 2007-2018. With this aim, this paper incorporates a study of similar previous research, theoretical examinations of the issue, and empirical testing of the correlation between both phenomena. While relying on public data issued by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE in Spanish), the empirical analysis of this research includes 1,200 observations of the 50 provinces (excluding the cities of Ceuta and Melilla) during the period spanning from 2007 to 2018. There are a total of 24 different subperiods in this study, each taken six months apart since the year 2007. The data is tested with a linear fixed effects regression and a fixed effects spatial autoregressive model to assess the correlation between interprovincial migration and variations in housing prices. The results show that there is indeed a correlation between both of these variables: the results from the fixed effect regressions show that an increase of inflow of migrants is correlated with an increase of value for the square meter of housing, while the fixed effect spatial autoregressive. model reveals that immigration might also affect prices in neighboring provinces.

Advisor

Wu, Sophie

Second Advisor

Long, Melanie

Department

Economics

Keywords

Internal Migration, Housing Market, depopulation, Spain, Fixed Effects, Spatial Autoregressive with fixed effects.

Publication Date

2020

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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