Research

Working Papers

The 10 Billion Travel World: Continuity and Change in Global Transnational Mobility (1995-2022).
With Ettore Recchi and Luca Bernasconi.
R&R at Data & Policy.
Draft Paper | MPC Seminar Presentation

Notwithstanding its size and importance in a globalized world, there is only little systematic information about the volume and direction of human travel that considers both migration and other kinds of mobility. This paper introduces new estimates of the volume of migratory and non-migratory human travel across country borders worldwide between 1995 and 2022. Building on pioneering work by Recchi et al. (2019), the estimates integrate information from three major sources: tourism data, air passenger data, and migration data. Our estimates reveal that total transnational mobility increased from 5.29 billion trips in 1995 to 10.66 billion in 2019, largely outpacing global population growth and telling a story of continued globalization in that period – or, more precisely, of regional integration, since four out of five cross-border travels occur within the same world region. Across the board, migration constitutes a tiny and decreasing fraction of international travel; less than 1% worldwide and as low as .12% in Europe. Amidst the sustained growth in volume, the global network of cross-border mobility has experienced slow ‘tectonic shifts’ in some of its major clusters, while maintaining a stable configuration in others.

Global Mobility Ginis: The Inequality of International Population Movements (1995-2022)
With Ettore Recchi, Emanuel Deutschmann, Luca Bernasconi and Adrian Favell.
Submitted.
Draft Paper

Presentations: MPC-Globalcit Annual Conference 2025, ISA RC28 Spring Meeting 2026, World Inequality Conference 2026

Going beyond conventional studies of migration, this paper documents inequality in international mobility more broadly conceived – that is, including migratory and nonmigratory forms of international population movements. Using outward mobility rates for 186 countries, we derive global mobility Gini coefficients from 1995 to 2022. Our results show that inequality in international population movements (de facto mobility) is substantially higher than inequality in visa-free travel rights (de jure mobility) and GDP per capita (economic welfare). This makes international mobility one of the most unequally distributed dimensions of human opportunity worldwide. While countries with large populations, such as China and India, have seen significant gains in de facto mobility since 1995, rankings of countries and world regions have changed little over time. Regression analyses using RIF models show that growing economic welfare is associated with lower inequality in global de facto mobility, primarily through countries from the lower half of the global GDP per capita distribution. In contrast, we find no statistical evidence that expanding de jure mobility alone reduces the global de facto mobility Gini. Overall, our findings highlight that, despite globalization, opportunities for cross-border movement remain deeply tied to individuals’ countries of residence.

Household Sizes and International Migration: Demographic and Socio-Cultural Change in a Structural Gravity Model of Migration.
New draft coming soon.

Presentations: MPC Seminar 2026

Older versions with the title "Cultural Similarity and Migration":
GLO discussion paper | IOS working paper

During the past decades, societies worldwide have undergone major demographic shifts driven by technological change, economic development, evolving social norms, and expanding civil rights. A central feature of these transformations is the global trend toward smaller household sizes. Using census-based data on household sizes across 159 countries, I examine how this trend affects international migration during 1990-2020. Beyond using average household size at origin as an indicator of demographic and socio-cultural change, I also develop a new dynamic measure of socio-cultural similarity between countries based on the distribution of household sizes. Following empirical practices developed in the international trade literature, I estimate a structural gravity model with origin-year, destination-year, and corridor fixed effects, as well as domestic flows. Four main findings emerge. First, smaller household sizes at origin—reflecting more individualistic socio-cultural arrangements—are consistently associated with larger international migration flows. This aligns with the Voluntary Settlement Hypothesis. Second, contrary to expectations, I find no consistent evidence that greater average socio-cultural similarity between origin and destination increases international migration. Third, the relationship between origin household size and migration shows only weak nonlinearity. This offers only limited support for the so-called Mobility Transition Hypothesis. Fourth, interactions reveal that similarity reduces migration from individualistic (small household) societies but may increase it from more collectivistic (large household) societies, indicating a stronger role for cultural fit in the latter.

The Role of Negative Stereotypes in Work Effort.
With Hanna Fromell.
Submitted.
Draft Paper

We study to what extent the exposure to a negative work-effort stereotype affects effort provision. Theory suggests that when people care about their social identity, negative stereotypes may trigger identity-motivated behaviors in the relevant domain. In an online lab experiment, we exogenously vary university students’ perceptions of the prevalence of the “young people are lazy” stereotype and examine its effect on deliberate effort provision in a real-effort task. We find no average treatment effect between students exposed to information about high versus low stereotype prevalence. However, we observe patterns consistent with heterogeneous responses, depending on individuals’ certainty about their work-effort identity. Individuals with higher certainty display increased effort, consistent with fighting responses to restore and defend their self-image, whereas those with lower certainty show lower effort, thus conforming to the stereotype. These patterns extend to migrant students, who may face compounding negative work-effort stereotypes and identity threats.

Work in Progress

Migration with Gravitas
With Tristan Kohl.

Presentations: European Trade Study Group 2025

In this paper, we investigate whether recent empirical critiques of the gravity model of migration withstand scrutiny. In particular, we show that methods and techniques developed in the trade gravity literature also allow for the description and explanation of temporal patterns of migration flows across countries.

The Effect of Free Movement on International Migration and Mobility in South America
With Natalia Debandi and Ana Paula Penchaszadeh.

Presentations: Universidad Nebrija Madrid 2026, MOBILE University Copenhagen 2026, IMISCOE 2026

This paper examines the effect of free movement regimes (FMRs) on international migration and visitor mobility in South America. An FMR establishes legal pathways for nationals of one country to enter, reside, and work in another without quotas or economic need tests. Beginning with several FMRs created by Argentina in the late 1990s, these regimes have expanded across the region, including the MERCOSUR and CAN FMRs. We distinguish between migration—movement plus settlement—and visitor mobility—movement without settlement—and juxtapose both flows to assess whether enhanced rights for signatory-country nationals generate parallel or opposing effects. Using a staggered difference‑in‑differences design, we test for substitution effects between these forms of mobility and across destinations. Our analysis draws on three large-scale datasets: the Freemove Database (Acosta and van der Baaren, 2024), the Global Transnational Mobilities Dataset 2.0 (Grohmann, Recchi and Bernasconi, 2026), and migration flow estimates from a deep-learning network model (Gaskin and Abel, 2025). Empirically, we apply recent advances in the difference‑in‑differences literature, estimating treatment effects using gravity‑model imputations of unobserved counterfactuals. Our results suggest that while migratory mobility tends to decrease following the entry into force of an FMR, visitor mobility appears to increase. The paper provides the first rigorous analysis of free movement in South America, broadening the focus beyond settlement migration, and demonstrates the value of imputation‑based DiD estimators for migration and mobility research.

Does Free Movement Boost Transnational Mobility?
With Greta Spanò, Luuk van der Baaren, Diego Acosta, and Ettore Recchi.

Presentations: MPC-Globalcit Annual Conference 2026, IMISCOE 2026

Free movement regimes have become a central feature of international migration governance, creating pathways that enable nationals of one state to enter, reside, and work within the territory of another. Empirical research on free movement regimes has prevailingly focused on two issues: the nature of the policies constituting it (eg, Acosta 2019) and the effect of the regime on people using mobility rights (eg, Recchi and Favell 2009). What remains understudied is the impact of these regimes on the volume of transnational mobility. More precisely, whether reducing entry and settlement barriers for non-citizens enhances border crossings and immigration, once we control for other potential drivers of transnational mobility. We intend to assess such a hypothesis by leveraging and merging two global datasets. On the one hand, the Free Movement Regimes Dataset (Freemove) that records free movement regimes between 1992 and 2024 (Acosta and van der Baaren 2025); on the other, the Global Transnational Mobility Dataset 2.0 (Grohmann et al 2025) which includes the volume of human movements between 243 countries and territories in the 1995-2022 period. Our analyses will unpack different dimensions of free movement regimes, distinguish between migratory and non-migratory mobility, and control for geographical, economic, and socio-political co-determinants of human mobility (eg, proximity, GDP differentials, transportation infrastructures, cultural affinities, inter alia). We will further differentiate between types of free movement regimes, using indicator scores that capture their varying scope, depth, and restrictiveness. We will adopt two analytical strategies: network-weighted functional regression models including all possible controls in pooled form and Diff-in-Diff modeling where we take new free movement policies as interventions potentially leading to an increase in mobility.

The long-lasting consequences of the 'Arbeitseinsatz' on civic engagement in the Netherlands
With Juliette de Wit, Femke Cnossen, and Maite Laméris.
YAG Grant announcement

During the Second World War, about a quarter of a million Dutch men were forced to work in Germany. Also known as the ‘Arbeitseinsatz’, all men aged 17-40 were at risk of being called and sent to German labor camps. The Arbeitseinsatz had grave consequences for the communities that were left behind. Refusal of the call resulted in reprisals or violent arrestations, yet obedience to the call would often result in heavy work under sometimes dangerous circumstances (Anne Frank House, n.d.). We operationalize archival information on forced labor and deportations in the Netherlands during the period of 1940-1945 by the Dutch National Archive, and investigate the long-term consequences of the Arbeitseinsatz on current civic engagement in the Netherlands. We will explore whether those communities that were exposed to higher levels of forced labor became less engaged in the public sphere, less trusting in others and institutions, and transmitted these social norms to future generations.

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