MIGRATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND PSYCHOLOGY: LOOKING FOR A LINK

The authors explore an alternative way of analyzing the relationship between development, migration and psychology. The method is based on the first principal component of national net immigrants'data in the Human Development Index rating domain. Results show that the main sources of emigrants are countries with moderate development and the main sink countries are ranked from Human Development Index Rating 10 to 30. This could be in part due to a psychological reason: “If one is poor among poor, incentives to migrate might be lower than if one is poor among (relatively) rich”.