Elderly Internal Migration in the United States Revisited

Abstract

This article explores determinants of elderly migration in the United States by extending the more formal model developed by Conway and Houtenville (1998) instead of the more traditional “investment” model. The approach is twofold. In the authors' model, they clarify the publicly provided goods that generate utility for the elderly while recognizing that the tax burden of the elderly is for all publicly provided goods supplied by each state. They also include the effects of growth rates in economic and policy variables during the migration period, which allows them to measure the endogeneity of elderly net in-migration and state expenditure policy. This approach generates intriguing results. In addition to the significance of standard amenity variables, the authors find that state per capita income and the real growth rate of state per capita income have a significant and positive effect on elderly net in-migration. They also find significant effects of overall tax burden variables. Surprisingly, when state elderly net in-migration and state fiscal policy are modeled endogenously, there is little evidence of any general effect of state expenditures on elderly migration.