Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program

Mobarak, Mushfiq ; Sharif, Iffath ; Shrestha, Maheshwor

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: INTERNAL MIGRATION;    LABOR SKILLS;    GOVERNMENT INTERMEDIATION;    LOTTERY;    WELFARE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-9165
RP-ID  :  WPS9165

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Many economists believe that the returnsto migration are high. However, credible experimentalestimates of the benefits of migration are rare,particularly for low-skilled international migrants andtheir families. This paper studies a natural experiment inBangladesh, where low-skilled male migrant workers toMalaysia were selected via a large-scale lottery program.This study tracked the households of lottery applicants andsurveyed 3,512 lottery winners and losers. Five years afterthe lottery, 76 percent of the winners had migratedinternationally compared with only 19 percent of the lotterylosers. Using the lottery outcome as an instrument, thepaper finds that the government intermediated migrationincreased the incomes of migrants by over 200 percent andtheir household per capita consumption by 22 percent.Furthermore, low-skilled international migration leads tolarge improvements in a wide array of householdsocioeconomic outcomes, including female involvement in keyhousehold decisions. Such large gains arise, at least inpart, due to lower costs of government intermediation.