Cognitive ability, the Big Five, and rural-to-urban migration in China

This paper investigates the role of cognitive ability and the Big Five factors in predicting individuals' probability of moving from rural to urban areas in China. Our estimation results suggest that a one standard deviation increase in cognitive ability is associated with a 0.7 percentage points increase in a person's migration probability during 2010–2020; while a one standard deviation increase in the personality trait openness to new experience correlates to a 0.8 percentage points increase in the probability of migration. Our estimates are substantial compared to unconditional migration probabilities, and are robust to issues such as reverse causality and measurement errors. We also provide suggestive evidence that cognitive ability may affect an individual's migration decision through the endowment channel, and personality traits may exert effects on one's migration probability through the preference channel.