Get Rich or Die Tryin’ : Perceived Earnings, Perceived Mortality Rates, and Migration Decisions of Potential Work Migrants from Nepal

This article reports on a randomized field experiment in which potential work migrants from Nepal to Malaysia and the Persian Gulf countries are provided with information on wages and mortality incidences at their intended destinations. It is found that, particularly for the group of potential migra...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Shrestha, Maheshwor
Format: Journal Article
Published: Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36068
Description
Summary:This article reports on a randomized field experiment in which potential work migrants from Nepal to Malaysia and the Persian Gulf countries are provided with information on wages and mortality incidences at their intended destinations. It is found that, particularly for the group of potential migrants without prior foreign migration experience, the information changes their expectations of earnings and mortality risks abroad, which further changes their actual migration decisions. Using the exogenous variation in expectations, it is estimated that the elasticity of migration with respect to mortality rate expectation is 0.8, and the elasticity of migration with respect to earnings expectation is 1.1.