The Long-term Impacts of International Migration : Evidence from a Lottery

We examine the long-term impacts of international migration by comparing immigrants who had successful ballot entries in a migration lottery program, and first moved almost a decade ago, with people who had unsuccessful entries into those same ballots. The long-term gain in income is found to be sim...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gibson, John, McKenzie, David, Rohorua, Halahingano, Stillman, Steven
Format: Journal Article
Published: Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32168
Description
Summary:We examine the long-term impacts of international migration by comparing immigrants who had successful ballot entries in a migration lottery program, and first moved almost a decade ago, with people who had unsuccessful entries into those same ballots. The long-term gain in income is found to be similar in magnitude to the gain in the first year despite migrants upgrading their education and changing their locations and occupations. This results in large sustained benefits to their immediate family who have substantially higher consumption, durable asset ownership, savings, and dietary diversity. In contrast we find no measurable impact on extended family.