Internal borders and migration in India*
利用2001年印度人口普查的区级迁移数据，发现邦边界显著阻碍内部迁移，相邻跨邦区间的迁移量比同邦内至少少50%，并指出邦级福利计划是主要障碍。
Internal mobility is a critical component of economic growth and development, as it enables the reallocation of labor to more productive opportunities across sectors and regions. Using detailed district-to-district migration data from the 2001 Census of India, the article highlights the role of state borders as significant impediments to internal mobility. The analysis finds that average migration between neighboring districts in the same state is at least 50% larger than neighboring districts on different sides of a state border, even after accounting for linguistic differences. Although the impact of state borders differs by education, age and reason for migration, it is always large and significant. The article suggests that inter-state mobility is inhibited by state-level entitlement schemes, ranging from access to subsidized goods through the public distribution system to the bias for states’ own residents in access to tertiary education and public sector employment.