Foot voting in Spain: What do internal migrations say about quality of life in the Spanish municipalities?

In this paper we analyse the differences in well-being between Spanishmunicipalities reflected by people’s migratory decisions. It is assumed that people movefor improving their well-being conditions and consequently migratory flows basicallyreflect perceived differences in the quality of life between potential destinations. Ourempirical findings are: first, municipalities in the Mediterranean Axis are perceived asthose with the highest quality of life; second, we detect a general process of convergence inquality of life conditions among the Spanish municipalities in the last 15 years; third,estimated levels of quality of life are inversely related to urban size; and, fourth, peopleperceive nearby destinations as the most attractive places to move to.