Abstract: This paper constructs a theoretical model to explore the role of education in inter-provincial migration. Using the micro data of the fifth and sixth census in China, our empirical research finds that (1) there is an education bias across provinces, the utility loss from inter-provincial migration significantly decreases as the education level of workers increases. However, these migration benefits from worker’s education attainment in 2010 are lower than those in year 2000. (2) The relative human capital returns are heterogeneous across provinces.（3）The migration costs of each migration province group were about 60% in 2000, which are slightly reduced to 58.9% in 2010. We conduct a series of counterfactual analysis to discuss the migration of workers with college degrees.

Keywords: Migration Cost; Education Migration Premium; Human Capital Return;   

JEL: J61; O15; R23