Calibrating a Model of the Decision to Move

Abstract

A previously published paper established that neither the cumulative-inertia hypothesis nor the independent-trials models were adequate explanations of observed mobility rates for individuals with different prior residential histories (Clark and Huff, 1977). An alternative model of the probability of moving incorporated the independent-trials model and cumulative inertia as special cases (Huff and Clark, 1978). In the present paper the model is restated, calibrated, and tested with a sample of household-mobility data from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Tests of the deterministic and stochastic versions of the model indicate that both versions adequately reproduce the residential-history trees.