Agglomeration of knowledge intensive activities as driver of high skilled inter-regional migration: A gravity model with Spanish labor mobility data

Human capital is considered one of the main drivers of long-term economic development, justifying large public investments in higher education. However, the existence of externalities in the form of agglomeration economies can induce high-skilled individuals to migrate into a reduced number of dynamic urban areas hosting the lion’s share of knowledge-intensive activities. Using rich administrative datasets on labor contracts and business demographic statistics, this work builds a gravity model explaining inter-regional migration by skill level between Spanish regions during the last 22 years (2001–2022). The results indicate that the agglomeration of knowledge-intensive activities, specifically measured as regional specialization in knowledge-intensive business services, is a significant and strong determinant of high-skilled migration. This result poses an important challenge for policymakers, as it implies that efforts to increase educational opportunities in peripheral regions could be seriously undermined by initial differences in economic structures.