Ricardo Quintanilla, UC, PhD student econ

Paper: If you build it, they won’t leave? Local university offer as a mechanism of local youth retention

Abstract: Chilean men and women are more likely to leave their region of origin at exactly 18, the age at which a majority graduates from high school.  This would suggest that many may leave to attend universities in other regions.  This article studies whether the regional supply of university education has a significant impact on the decision to migrate regionally among Chilean youth. To this end, a panel university openings and closures at the regional level is constructed for the last 50 years. Migration is measured through Chilean censuses. The main findings are that a greater supply of university programs in the region of origin decreases the probability of migrating and becoming a student, but not the probability of migrating overall and or that of migrating for work. Furthermore, a relatively greater supply of university programs in the destination region compared to the region of origin increases the probability of choosing the potential destination region but the effect is only visible when conditioning on migration and the magnitudes are very small.  Overall, the results suggest that the opening of new regional universities is unlikely to keep local youth in their region of origin.