Cultural gravity and redistribution of growth through migration: Cohesion lessons from spatial econometrics and topological data analysis

Abstract

Cultural Gravity is defined as the power of the cultural milieu of a locality to attract immigrants. We test the impact of Cultural Gravity on the spatial clustering and productivity of culturally diverse migrants throughout the European Union. We add to the literature in two ways. First, we clarify the position of the notion of Cultural Gravity within the urban economics literature on moving centres of economic gravity, spatial frictions, and redistribution of growth. Second, we use spatial regression methods, and topological data analysis approaches to quantify the relationship between Cultural Gravity and economic gravity in the EU28 regions. Our findings concord with earlier literature on Cultural Gravity and advance this literature by geographically mapping the invisible and non-linear cultural friction in the redistribution of growth across the EU regions. Thus, we show how Cultural Gravity exerts an important impact on the cohesion process in Europe.