Footsteps in the Spanish provincial income convergence: Have there been changes on the foreign-born internal migration impact?

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyze the effects of foreign-born internal migration in the process of economic provincial convergence. For that purpose, we employ panel data for income per capita and migration flows from the Spanish provinces (NUTS-3) for 2002 to 2017. This allows us to consider the period before and after the recent Spanish economic recession. Data used is available in the INE and comes from the Spanish Regional Account (SRA), the Statistics of Residential Variation (SRV) and the Economically Active Population Survey (EAPS). Results show that the internal migratory flows of the foreign-born population weakly encouraged provincial convergence for the whole period analyzed. During the years before the economic recession (2002-2008), there is a clear β-convergence and the income distribution across provinces changes according this results. The estimates for the period after the financial crisis started (i.e. 2009-2017) reveal a rise on β-convergence, but the income distribution across provinces holds stable. Results seems to indicate that the weak contribution of the foreign-born internal over the Spanish provincial income convergence becomes weaker after the economic crisis started.