Fondazione GRINS
Growing Resilient,
Inclusive and Sustainable
Galleria Ugo Bassi 1, 40121, Bologna, IT
C.F/P.IVA 91451720378
Finanziato dal Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR), Missione 4 (Infrastruttura e ricerca), Componente 2 (Dalla Ricerca all’Impresa), Investimento 1.3 (Partnership Estese), Tematica 9 (Sostenibilità economica e finanziaria di sistemi e territori).
Open Access
GRINS THEMATIC AREAS
This paper examines the evolution and determinants of skill-specific internal mobility among Italian citizens by urban–rural origin. Using administrative data from the Registry of Transfer of Residence (ADELE), which records the universe of skill-specific bilateral moves across more than 700 millions potential municipality pairs between 2012 and 2022, we document distinct trends in residential mobility for college-educated and non-college-educated citizens. We then assess the role of economic and non-economic factors in shaping these flows, employing a Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) estimator with an extensive set of destination and origin-by-nest fixed effects. Our findings show that low-skilled movers respond more strongly to economic factors, while high-skilled movers are respond more to non-economic ones, with the urban–rural divide at origin amplifying these differences. Moreover, we find that after the COVID-19 pandemic, economic drivers became less relevant, whereas non-economic factors gained importance. Overall, this study highlights that, similar to international migration, the drivers of internal mobility are inherently skill-specific.
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AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors are grateful to Roberto Basile, Andrea Caragliu, Jesús Fernández-Huertas Moraga and André Torre for their useful comments and discussion. We wish to thank conference participants at the XXIII Annual SIEPI Workshop (Bologna), at the 71st NARSC Meeting (New Orleans), at the Annual Conference of the RSA (Porto), at 15th International EGI Conference (Bari), at the Workshop “Regional Studies and Territorial Development” and at the “UNIBA’s Applied Economics Seminars’ Cycle”, both organized within the activities of the Multidisciplinary Territorial Policy Lab (MTPL) and hosted by the Laboratory of Applied Economics (LEA)–DEMDI. The research was supported by funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2021-124713OB-I00) and the EU – NextGenerationEU, Mission 4, Component 2, within the framework of the GRINS – Growing Resilient, INclusive and Sustainable project (GRINS PE00000018 – CUP: H93C22000650001, Spoke 7: “Territorial sustainability”). A.C. acknowledges the PhD scholarship “Innovation as a response of firms and territories to natural disasters: resilience and sustainability” (Ministerial Decree No. 351/22), funded by the EU – NextGenerationEU under Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), Mission 4 – Component 1 (Investment 3.4 “Advanced university education and skills”). The paper also gratefully acknowledges support from the Generalitat de Catalunya, Serra Húnter Programme, Spain. No potential competing interest was reported by the authors. Any remaining errors are our responsibility.
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