This article re-examines Gani’s (1998) findings on the determinants of migrant
flows from Fiji to New Zealand by employing the bounds testing procedure to
cointegration, within an autoregressive distributive lag framework. The main
findings are that in the long run all variables are statistically insignificant,
although correctly signed with the exception of the unemployment differential.
In the short run, in sharp contrast to Gani’s (1998) findings, political instability
is consistently the most important determinant of migration flows while the standard
of living and real wage differentials are statistically insignificant across all
specifications.