This is a quantitative study aimed at analyzing the migration patterns across the fifty United States of America and the determinants thereof. This research is founded upon the theories and study of agglomeration economies and institutional factors to evaluate each state in terms of creativity and freedom. Values for creativity and institutional freedom serve as the independent variables. The dependent variable is actual state to state migration data during the 2004-2008 period from the Internal Revenue Service. Measures for education, climate, population, distance, and crime rates serve as control variables in this study.
All 34 models of this study were analyzed via multivariate linear regression using the SPSS 17.0 software package. All models were highly significant with high coefficients of determination. The results show that creativity is highly significantly and positively correlated with circulatory migration flows. Economic, personal, and overall freedom were very significant predictors of migration in terms of attraction and circulation. Apart from education, all the control variables examined were significant predictors of migration flows. This study also creates a new measure of overall freedom: the FRASERMPFI, which outperformed all other independent variables.
The results of this study have several implications for workers, businesses, and policy makers. It is hoped that the results of this study can serve as a reference for future economic growth and promotion of freedom in the U.S.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0109112-094918 |
| Date | 09 January 2012 |
| Creators | Hoeltschi, Kevin |
| Contributors | Wanncheng Wang, David Andersson, Allison Haga |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0109112-094918 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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