Freedom and International Migration

Abstract

Economic and political freedoms are regressed on a bilateral cross section of international migrant stocks using ordinary least squares and Tobit techniques. A positive relationship between these variables is found. Economic freedom is statistically significant even when controlling for income per capita and political freedom. In addition, the impact of these freedoms on migration flows into OECD countries between 2001 and 2006 using fixed effects estimations is analyzed. The panel data analysis mostly corroborates the cross‐sectional analysis. The notable exception is that political freedom appears to have had a negative impact on migration flows during this period.