Institutional quality and emigration nexus: Empirical evidence from Türkiye

Abstract This study attempts to fill an important gap in the empirical literature by investigating the impact of institutional quality in destination countries on emigrants from Türkiye using bilateral migration data from 2010 through 2020. For this purpose, the study builds an augmented gravity model, including economic, geographic, and cultural variables in an exponential form and estimates it by the Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) method. Empirical results significantly confirm the pulling role of strong institutions in destination countries for emigrants from Türkiye since all institutional quality indicators are positively associated with emigrant movements, albeit just one of them, regulatory quality, is statistically insignificant. Among indicators of institutional quality, the most pulling ones for emigrants are voice and accountability and the rule of law, followed by government effectiveness, control of corruption, and political stability and absence of violence, respectively. Overall results indicate that institutions are front‐line players in the emigrants' migration decision and destination choice process. In this context, policy‐makers in both Türkiye and the destination country may implement an institutional policy considering the outcomes stemming from migration movements.