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

Many economists believe that the returns to migration are high. However, credible experimental estimates of the benefits of migration are rare, particularly for low-skilled international migrants and their families. This paper studies a natural exp...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Mobarak, Mushfiq, Sharif, Iffath, Shrestha, Maheshwor
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:	INTERNAL MIGRATION LABOR SKILLS GOVERNMENT INTERMEDIATION LOTTERY WELFARE
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/812241582828192310/Returns-to-Low-Skilled-International-Migration-Evidence-from-the-Bangladesh-Malaysia-Migration-Lottery-Program http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33408

id	okr-10986-33408
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-334082022-09-20T00:12:49Z Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program Mobarak, Mushfiq Sharif, Iffath Shrestha, Maheshwor INTERNAL MIGRATION LABOR SKILLS GOVERNMENT INTERMEDIATION LOTTERY WELFARE Many economists believe that the returns to migration are high. However, credible experimental estimates of the benefits of migration are rare, particularly for low-skilled international migrants and their families. This paper studies a natural experiment in Bangladesh, where low-skilled male migrant workers to Malaysia were selected via a large-scale lottery program. This study tracked the households of lottery applicants and surveyed 3,512 lottery winners and losers. Five years after the lottery, 76 percent of the winners had migrated internationally compared with only 19 percent of the lottery losers. Using the lottery outcome as an instrument, the paper finds that the government intermediated migration increased the incomes of migrants by over 200 percent and their household per capita consumption by 22 percent. Furthermore, low-skilled international migration leads to large improvements in a wide array of household socioeconomic outcomes, including female involvement in key household decisions. Such large gains arise, at least in part, due to lower costs of government intermediation. 2020-03-04T14:26:45Z 2020-03-04T14:26:45Z 2020-02 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/812241582828192310/Returns-to-Low-Skilled-International-Migration-Evidence-from-the-Bangladesh-Malaysia-Migration-Lottery-Program http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33408 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9165 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper South Asia Bangladesh
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	INTERNAL MIGRATION LABOR SKILLS GOVERNMENT INTERMEDIATION LOTTERY WELFARE
spellingShingle	INTERNAL MIGRATION LABOR SKILLS GOVERNMENT INTERMEDIATION LOTTERY WELFARE Mobarak, Mushfiq Sharif, Iffath Shrestha, Maheshwor Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program
geographic_facet	South Asia Bangladesh
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9165
description	Many economists believe that the returns to migration are high. However, credible experimental estimates of the benefits of migration are rare, particularly for low-skilled international migrants and their families. This paper studies a natural experiment in Bangladesh, where low-skilled male migrant workers to Malaysia were selected via a large-scale lottery program. This study tracked the households of lottery applicants and surveyed 3,512 lottery winners and losers. Five years after the lottery, 76 percent of the winners had migrated internationally compared with only 19 percent of the lottery losers. Using the lottery outcome as an instrument, the paper finds that the government intermediated migration increased the incomes of migrants by over 200 percent and their household per capita consumption by 22 percent. Furthermore, low-skilled international migration leads to large improvements in a wide array of household socioeconomic outcomes, including female involvement in key household decisions. Such large gains arise, at least in part, due to lower costs of government intermediation.
format	Working Paper
author	Mobarak, Mushfiq Sharif, Iffath Shrestha, Maheshwor
author_facet	Mobarak, Mushfiq Sharif, Iffath Shrestha, Maheshwor
author_sort	Mobarak, Mushfiq
title	Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program
title_short	Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program
title_full	Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program
title_fullStr	Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program
title_full_unstemmed	Returns to Low-Skilled International Migration : Evidence from the Bangladesh-Malaysia Migration Lottery Program
title_sort	returns to low-skilled international migration : evidence from the bangladesh-malaysia migration lottery program
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2020
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/812241582828192310/Returns-to-Low-Skilled-International-Migration-Evidence-from-the-Bangladesh-Malaysia-Migration-Lottery-Program http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33408
_version_	1764478698083319808

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

Similar Items