Internal migration and the role of the place of origin

This paper investigates empirically the emigration decision of first-time internal migrants in Mexico for the period between 2002 and 2005, and focuses on the role of the characteristics of the place of origin in the decision to emigrate, controlling for initial individual characteristics of internal migrants. We use the rich data provided by the Mexican Family Life Survey and hierarchical modeling techniques. Consistent with previous empirical evidence, we find a pattern of positive selection of emigrants in terms of human capital (measured as level of schooling and with a cognitive abilities test score).