Analysing international migration flows: a Bayesian network approach

In this paper we investigate the non-economic determinants of international migration flows. We approach this problem using a Bayesian graphical model methodology which performs variable selection among a set of covariates that are potentially related to migration flows. We consider inflows to Italy from 171 different countries of origin on which we measure demographic and geographic characteristics. While results are coherent with the most recent literature, our method also provides measures of uncertainty around the dependence structure between covariates and migration flows.