Social capital and the internal mobility of graduates: a gravity model at the Italian provincial level

Abstract Internal high-skilled migration is acknowledged as one of the key engines of regional innovation and growth. Using detailed NUTS-3 cross-sectional migration data for 2012, the analysis highlights the importance of three forms of social capital (SC)—namely sociability, community involvement, and political engagement—in shaping graduates’ mobility across Italian provinces. The findings indicate that higher SC in the origin province discourages high-skilled outflows, whereas significant SC differences between origin and destination (with higher SC in the latter) may motivate graduates to migrate. The results also reveal that several variables pertaining to the agglomeration economies are crucial drivers of domestic migrations.