main _push_ factors highlighted in the literature (Mayda, 2010). Beyond the _push_ and _pull_ factors, country-pair specific characteristics may also affect bilateral migration settlement. In line with the gravity model for migration (Anderson, 2011), the geographic distance between countries has a strong negative effect on bilateral migration, while common culture traits (common language, religion, past colonial links) stimulate bilateral migration (Gross and Schmitt, 2003; Berthélemy et al., 2009). Few papers have tested the role of administrative burden at the border on bilateral migration. An exception is Bertoli and Fernández-Huertas Moraga (2015) who show that visa requirements reduce direct bilateral migration flows by between 40% and 47%. We contribute to this literature by looking at how _changes_ in the administrative burden for international migration affect the international settlement of immigrants.<sup>1</sup> Two papers have tested explicitly the effect of RTAs and visa provision on bilateral migration. Using IMD-OECD bilateral migration flows in the period 1998-2008 for 29 OECD destinations, Orefice (2015) finds a strong positive effect of RTAs and visa provisions on bilateral migration. Figueiredo et al. (2016) add a wider set of destination countries and longer time period to Orefice (2015) and confirm the positive effect of Visa provisions on bilateral migration stocks.<sup>2</sup> This paper adds to Orefice (2015) and Figueiredo et al. (2016) in many ways. First, as in Figueiredo et al. (2016) we rely on bilateral migration _stocks_ to cover a wider set of destination and origin countries, but base our identification on the within variation of migration stocks and signature of RTAs with visa provisions.<sup>3</sup> Second, we use information on the presence of visa-related provisions for a wider set of RTAs: while Orefice (2015) and Figueiredo et al. (2016) rely on a sample of 96 RTAs, the present paper benefits from recent World Bank data on the content of 279 RTAs. Third, we consider the specific type of visa provision in RTAs in affecting the bilateral settlement of immigrants (i.e. provisions directly reducing the administrative burden to get a visa, legally enforceable provision implying dispute settlement, etc.). Finally, we explicitly consider the effect of Job Posting provisions in RTAs on bilateral migration. To the best of our knowledge this is the first paper that looks at the migration effect of each specific type of visa provision. Finally, we highlight an important heterogeneity in the effect of visa-related provisions on bilateral migration stocks among countries with different income levels and attitudes towards immigration.

Our results have two relevant policy messages. First, the inclusion of visa provisions in RTAs may be used by countries as an indirect migration policy: when governments have their

> 1Bertoli and Fernández-Huertas Moraga (2015) exploit the cross-section variation in the presence of visa requirement on the bilateral stock of immigrants. With respect to Bertoli and Fernández-Huertas Moraga (2015) we also extend the sample of countries covered in the analysis. See section 2.1.

> 2To obtain data on a wider set of destinations countries, Figueiredo et al. (2016) use World Bank data on the _stock_ rather than _flows_ of migrants.

> 3Figueiredo et al. (2016) rely on cross-section identification (i.e. they do not control for country-pair fixed effects).

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