A network-based economic growth model with endogenous migration and poverty traps

Abstract

We analyze a network-based macroeconomic framework with the objective to analyze the effects that endogenous migration choices may have on the mutual relation between population dynamics and capital accumulation. In our economy population size determines the labor input which, together with the available capital stock, shapes total output. Production takes place with a convex-concave technology allowing for a poverty trap. Migration depends on the origin-destination income differential and affects the fertility rate. Thus population growth ultimately turns out to be endogenously dependent upon economic conditions. Such feedback effects between population and capital dynamics give rise to possible heterogeneity in the patterns of economic development, allowing to explain the large variability in the level of development between regions we generally observe at world level. We show that a higher degree of economic interaction improves economic outcomes at global level by allowing poor economies to escape their poverty trap, suggesting thus that promoting the formation of tight relations between countries may be an important policy option to favor economic development.