Quantifying institutional-emigration elasticities in Fiji – an augmented panel gravity approach

The extant empirical literature recognises political instability and socio-economic conditions as key contributors to migration from Fiji. We propose that these, along with the broader aspects of institutional quality are fundamental determinants of out-migration from Fiji. The key objective is to assess whether broader institutional weaknesses serve as significant push factors influencing emigration decisions. To this end, we investigate the effect of institutional quality on migration flow from Fiji to major migration destination countries using the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) technique from 2002 to 2022. Controlling for source and destination countries’ income levels, population size, cultural, social, and physical distance, our findings suggest that migration flow from Fiji is significantly determined by the institutional quality indicators. Our results remain strongly robust across various econometric techniques that control for sample selection bias, zero-valued observations, and endogeneity concerns, which are addressed using Poisson instrumental variable (IV) regressions. We also support our benchmark results using sensitivity analysis from different institutional quality datasets. Hence, improving institutions and economic freedom in Fiji is key to reducing out-migration. Policy implications are discussed.