On the Estimation and Forecasting of International Migration: How Relevant is Heterogeneity Across Countries?

26 Pages Posted: 23 Aug 2005

See all articles by Herbert Brücker

Herbert Brücker

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Boriss Siliverstovs

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) - Department of International Economics

Date Written: August 2005

Abstract

This paper performs a comparative analysis of estimation as well as of out-of-sample forecasting results of more than 20 estimators common in the panel data literature using the data on migration to Germany from 18 source countries in the period 1967-2001. Our results suggest that the choice of an estimation procedure has a substantial impact on the parameter estimates of the migration function. Out-of-sample forecasting results indicate the following: (i) the standard fixed effects estimators clearly outperforms the pooled OLS estimator, (ii) both the fixed effects estimators and the hierarchical Bayes estimator exhibit the superior forecast performance, (iii) the fixed effects estimators outperform GMM and other instrumental variables estimators, (iv) forecasting performance of heterogenous estimators is mediocre in our data set.

Keywords: International migration, panel data, forecasting

JEL Classification: C23, C53, F22

Suggested Citation

Brücker, Herbert and Siliverstovs, Boriss, On the Estimation and Forecasting of International Migration: How Relevant is Heterogeneity Across Countries? (August 2005). IZA Discussion Paper No. 1710, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=783724 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.783724

Herbert Brücker (Contact Author)

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) ( email )

Mohrenstraße 58
Berlin, 10117
Germany

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Boriss Siliverstovs

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) - Department of International Economics ( email )

Mohrenstraße 58
Berlin, 10117
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.diw.de/programme/jsp/MA.jsp?language=en&uid=bsiliverstovs

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