Adaptability and intelligence influence migration

6 October 2017 15:58

Adaptability and intelligence influence migration

Aline Bütikofer and Giovanni Peri have a new working paper on "The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills on Migration Decisions." Their evidence suggests that adaptability reduces the psychological cost of migrating, whereas cognitive skills increase the monetary returns associated with migration.

Aline Bütikofer
Aline Bütikofer

In their paper "The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills on Migration Decisions" Bütikofer and Peri use Norwegian register data to understand how sociability, adaptability and intelligence, or noncognitive and cognitive skills, influence migration.

The study is based on a combination of data sources. One is military enlistment in Norway of all men born in 1932 and 1933, who where scored both on cognitive skills and their psychological suitability for military service, including adaptability and sociability. Bütikofer and Peri then followed the recruit's working lives until retirement.

Schooling has long been recognized as important for migration, but little is known of whether it is cognitive abilities (intelligence) or noncognitive abilities that are more important. Bütikofer and Peri find that both adaptability and intelligence affect migration potitively and find that higher intelligence leads to higher wages after the migration. They also find that a combination of high adaptability and low intelligence has an extra strong effect on migration. Their evidence suggests that adaptability reduces the psychological cost of migrating, whereas cognitive skills increase the monetary returns associated with migration.

Read the working paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research