Learning About Migration Decisions from the Migrants: Using Complementary Datasets to Model Intra-Regional Migrations in Spain

We investigate the determinants of the remarkable increase in intra-regional migrations since the 1980’s in Spain, using a large administrative micro dataset on migrants. Conditional migration probabilities are identified by comparing the migrants’ joint distribution of characteristics to the corresponding distribution from the Spanish Labour Force Survey. The proportion of employment in the service industry, unemployment, house prices and education all have an important positive effect on the individual probabilities of intra-regional migration.