Returns to International Migration: Evidence from a Bangladesh-Malaysia Visa Lottery

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq; Sharif, Iffath; Shrestha, Maheshwor
• 署名单位: Yale University; Deakin University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; The World Bank
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20220258
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 353-388
• 关键词: seasonal migration; remittances; IMPACT; MIGRANTS; INEQUALITY; emigration; decisions; poverty

摘要

South Asians traveling to richer Asian nations is the world's largest migration corridor. We track down applicants to a government lottery that randomly allocated visas to Bangladeshis for temporary labor contracts in Malaysia, five years later. Most lottery winners migrate, and migrants' earnings triple. Their remittance raises their fami-ly's standard of living in Bangladesh. The migrant's absence pauses marriage and childbirth and shifts decision-making power toward females. Migration removes enterprising individuals, lowering house-hold entrepreneurship, but does not crowd out other family members' labor supply. A deferred migration offer never materialized for a sub-group. Their premigration investments in skills generate no returns in the domestic market. (JEL F22, F24, I31, J24, J31, J82, O15)