Wealth formation by economic agents and their international mobility: towards an eclectic migration decision-support framework

• Published in: Studia z polityki publicznej Vol. 6; no. 4(24); pp. 33 - 60
• Main Authors: Jancewicz, Barbara, Markowski, Stefan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Collegium of Socio-Economics, SGH Warsaw School of Economics 29-01-2020
• Subjects: economics of migration; international migration; migration theory
• ISSN: 2391-6389; 2719-7131
• DOI: 10.33119/KSzPP/2019.4.2

International migration has been a major influence on the economic and social development of nations. Nevertheless, a vast majority of the global population continues to reside in their country of birth. While income/wealth differentials between states create centrifugal forces responsible for migration, impediments to international mobility of human, financial, physical and social capital assets work in the centripetal direction. This paper reviews a large segment of the extant literature on international migration to probe economic influences on people’s international mobility and immobility decisions. It aims to refine and extend the neoclassical foundations of migration theory and to outline howpotentially complex decision mechanisms used by potentially mobile economic agents may be modified to simplify the complexity inherent in such choices so that immobility is often a default outcome of indecision.