Schwerpunkt Ii Märkte Und Politik Forschungsgruppe Wettbewerb Und Innovation the Decision to Migrate: a Simultaneous Decision Making Approach the Decision to Migrate: a Simultaneous Decision Making Approach * Die Migrationsentscheidung Von It-hochschulabsolventen: Ein Simultaner Entscheidungsprosses

Discrete choice models are used to investigate the individual's choice among a discrete number of alternatives. The characteristics of each alternative, by means of multinomial and nested multinomial models, have been taken into account. Specifically, this study analyses the impact of choice-specific characteristics (economic and socio-political attributes) in a model of choice between different country locations. Individual IT-graduates are assumed to choose a single type of move, stay-home or go-abroad, while simultaneously choosing a country of their choice. We demonstrate that a nested logit model is appropriate on both theoretical and empirical grounds. The sample consists of 1,500 IT-graduates from India. The results show on the one hand a high migration propensity for foreign destinations and on the other hand a quite large number of IT-Graduates who want to stay at home. By comparing the direct elas-ticities (at branch level) of home with those of foreign destination types we observe that both the economic as well as socio-political factors tend to have a greater impact for the foreign destinations. Based on the cross elasticities values, a location comparison between the destinations Germany and the USA/Canada shows that the magnitude of the values of elasticities are found to be higher for North American countries than for Germany. This suggests that IT-Graduates evaluate the economic as well as the socio-political factors as more important and significantly higher for North American destinations than for Germany. In addition we find strong evidence for a competition between countries with high potentials, with India emerging as an attractive location.