The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making : Evidence from a Migration Lottery and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments

This paper studies how migration from a poor to a rich country affects key economic beliefs, preference parameters, and transnational household decision-making efficiency. The setting is the migration of Tongans to New Zealand through a migration l...

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Main Authors:	Gibson, John, McKenzie, David, Rohorua, Halahingano, Stillman, Steven
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2016
Subjects:	migration economic beliefs preferences household efficiency transnational households remittances
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/10/26836670/long-term-impact-international-migration-economic-decision-making-evidence-migration-lottery-lab-in-the-field-experiments http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25165

id	okr-10986-25165
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-251652021-04-23T14:04:29Z The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making : Evidence from a Migration Lottery and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments Gibson, John McKenzie, David Rohorua, Halahingano Stillman, Steven migration economic beliefs preferences household efficiency transnational households remittances This paper studies how migration from a poor to a rich country affects key economic beliefs, preference parameters, and transnational household decision-making efficiency. The setting is the migration of Tongans to New Zealand through a migration lottery program. In a 10-year follow-up survey of individuals applying for this program, the study elicited risk and time preferences and pro-market beliefs. It also linked migrants and potential migrants to a partner household consisting of family members who would stay behind if the migrants moved. Survey participants played lab-in-the-field games designed to measure the degree of intra-family trust and the efficiency of intra-family decision-making. Migration provides a large and permanent positive shock to income, a large change in economic institutions, and a reduction in interactions with partner household members. Despite these changes, the study finds no significant impacts of migration on risk and time preferences, pro-market beliefs, or the decision-making efficiency of transnational households. This stability in the face of such a large and life-changing event lends credence to economic models of migration that treat these determinants of decision-making as time-invariant, and contrasts with recent evidence on preference changes after negative shocks. 2016-10-17T16:26:06Z 2016-10-17T16:26:06Z 2016-10 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/10/26836670/long-term-impact-international-migration-economic-decision-making-evidence-migration-lottery-lab-in-the-field-experiments http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25165 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7848 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 East Asia and Pacific New Zealand
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English en_US
topic	migration economic beliefs preferences household efficiency transnational households remittances
spellingShingle	migration economic beliefs preferences household efficiency transnational households remittances Gibson, John McKenzie, David Rohorua, Halahingano Stillman, Steven The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making : Evidence from a Migration Lottery and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments
geographic_facet	East Asia and Pacific New Zealand
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7848
description	This paper studies how migration from a poor to a rich country affects key economic beliefs, preference parameters, and transnational household decision-making efficiency. The setting is the migration of Tongans to New Zealand through a migration lottery program. In a 10-year follow-up survey of individuals applying for this program, the study elicited risk and time preferences and pro-market beliefs. It also linked migrants and potential migrants to a partner household consisting of family members who would stay behind if the migrants moved. Survey participants played lab-in-the-field games designed to measure the degree of intra-family trust and the efficiency of intra-family decision-making. Migration provides a large and permanent positive shock to income, a large change in economic institutions, and a reduction in interactions with partner household members. Despite these changes, the study finds no significant impacts of migration on risk and time preferences, pro-market beliefs, or the decision-making efficiency of transnational households. This stability in the face of such a large and life-changing event lends credence to economic models of migration that treat these determinants of decision-making as time-invariant, and contrasts with recent evidence on preference changes after negative shocks.
format	Working Paper
author	Gibson, John McKenzie, David Rohorua, Halahingano Stillman, Steven
author_facet	Gibson, John McKenzie, David Rohorua, Halahingano Stillman, Steven
author_sort	Gibson, John
title	The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making : Evidence from a Migration Lottery and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments
title_short	The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making : Evidence from a Migration Lottery and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments
title_full	The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making : Evidence from a Migration Lottery and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments
title_fullStr	The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making : Evidence from a Migration Lottery and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments
title_full_unstemmed	The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making : Evidence from a Migration Lottery and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments
title_sort	long-term impact of international migration on economic decision-making : evidence from a migration lottery and lab-in-the-field experiments
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2016
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/10/26836670/long-term-impact-international-migration-economic-decision-making-evidence-migration-lottery-lab-in-the-field-experiments http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25165
_version_	1764458716896165888

The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making : Evidence from a Migration Lottery and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments

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