Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Economics Research Institute Study Paper

Volume

15

Publisher

Utah State University Department of Economics

Publication Date

2006

Rights

Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact the Institutional Repository Librarian at digitalcommons@usu.edu.

First Page

1

Last Page

27

Abstract

Studies of migration typically examine migration between countries, or, in the United States, migration between states. Recently, there have been several studies done on the determinants of migration at the county level. The current study introduces a new concept into the migration literature: the migration turnover rate (MTR). The migration turnover rate is similar to an employee turnover rate in that it measures the turnover through in-migration and out-migration of the population of an area during a given period of time. The MTR is measured as the minimum of gross in-migration and gross out-migration over the period, as a percentage of the population of the area. Just as employee turnover creates costs for the employer, population turnover creates costs for society. Hence, understanding the determinants ofMTR will be useful in predicting and preparing for the associated costs. The study identifies migration turnover rates by county for the United States for the period 1985-1990, and uses an econometric model to identify the importance of a variety of factors associated with counties in influencing the size of MTR. It is found that a number of economic, demographic, social, environmental, geographic, and political variables are significant determinants of county MTR.

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