| This dissertation uses a case study of Cote d'Ivoire to motivate the formulation and examine the implications of a model of migration that focuses on the characteristics of rural economies that generate out-migration. Discussions of the cases of Ghana and Burkina Faso help assess the range of applicability of the approach. The analysis is motivated by the literature on migration in LDC's, which has focused primarily on the urban sector, and by an examination of the relationship between migration patterns and regional distribution of economic activity in Cote d'Ivoire.;The central premise of the model is a differentiation between the household's cash and kind incomes. By assuming that the household cannot sell its food output to finance its consumption of purchased goods, we generate a nonseparability in the model, so that the labor allocation decision depends directly on consumption preferences, and migration is directly motivated by the desire to consume purchased goods. The principal result of the model is that although increases in agricultural cash income do reduce migration, improvements in food production possibilities may result in increased migration.;The main empirical implication of the model is that we should see more out-migration from regions where agricultural activity is less commercialized, even if in-kind income in the region is relatively high. Chapter Four presents tabular evidence and uses regression, discriminant and logit analysis of data at several levels of aggregation to examine the extent to which this implication is borne out in the data. In general, the results of the empirical analysis do show migration from a region to be increasing with food output, and decreasing with cash income. Overall, we see more migration from regions whose production structures are less commercialized. The chapter also includes an exercise measuring interregional transfers of purchasing power, and concludes that these transfers are correlated with the direction and volume of migration flows.;The case studies of Ghana and Burkina Faso conclude that our model is appropriate for economies in which most households are able to meet or exceed subsistence food constraints, and in which regions are significantly differentiated in terms of the level of commercialization of production activity. |
