Migration and institutional quality across Italian provinces: The role of human capital

A recent literature strand has emphasized the importance of international migration on the institutional quality of sending and receiving countries. On the contrary, there is no evidence of the effects of intra-national, interregional mobility on government quality, a phenomenon which is particularly relevant in countries affected by significant internal dualism. Using a system generalized method of moments (SYS-GMM) estimator on a 2004-2012 panel dataset, this paper empirically investigates the relationship between internal net-migration and institutional quality of Italian provinces. The findings show that migration has a relevant and positive effect on the quality of institutions only when the human capital content is taken into account.