Suchergebnisse

Does emigration really drain human capital accumulation in origin countries? This paper explores a unique household survey purposely designed and conducted to answer this specific question for the case of Cape Verde - the African country with the largest fraction of tertiary educated population living abroad, despite also having a fast-growing stock of human capital. Unlike previous literature, our tailored survey allows us to adjust existing inflated "brain drain" numbers for educational upgrading of emigrants after migration. We do so by combining our survey data on current, return and non-migrants with information from censuses of the destination countries. Our micro data also enables us to propose a novel, explicit test of "brain gain" arguments according to which the possibility of own future emigration positively impacts educational attainment in the origin country. Crucially, the innovative empirical strategy we propose hinges on the ideal characteristics of our survey, namely on full histories of migrants and on a new set of exclusion restrictions to control for unobserved heterogeneity of emigrants. Our results point to a very substantial impact of the brain gainʺ channel on the educational attainment of those left behind. Alternative channels (namely remittances, family disruption, and general equilibrium effects at the local level) are also considered, but these do not seem to play an important role. Overall, we find that there may be substantial human capital gains from allowing free migration and encouraging return migration. -- Brain drain ; brain gain ; brain circulation ; international migration ; human capital ; effects of emigration in origin countries ; household survey ; Cape Verde ; sub-Saharan Africa

Voter education campaigns often aim to increase voter participation and political accountability. Randomized interventions were implemented nationwide during the 2009 Mozambican elections using leaáets, text messaging, and a free newspaper. We study the local peer e§ecs triggered by the campaign. We investigate whether treatment e§ects are transmitted through social networks and geographical proximity at the village level. For individuals personally targeted by the campaign, we estimate the reinforcement e§ect of proximity to other individuals in our sample. For untargeted individuals, we estimate how the campaign di§uses as a function of proximity to others in the sample. We Önd evidence for both e§ects, similar across treatments and proximity measures. The campaign raises the level of interest in the election through networks, in line with the average treatment e§ect. However, we Önd a negative network e§ect of the treatment on voter participation, implying that the positive e§ect of treatment on more central individuals is smaller. We interpret this result as consistent with free-riding through pivotal reasoning and we provide additional evidence to support this claim. ; authorsversion ; published

Funding sponsor: Princeton University and International Growth Centre ; What is the role of international migrants and, more specifically, of migrant networks in shaping political attitudes and behavior in migrant sending countries? We propose that migration might change social norms for political participation, while it may also improve knowledge about better quality political institutions. Hence, international migration might increase political awareness and participation both by migrants and by other individuals in their networks. To test this hypothesis, we use detailed data on different types of migrant networks, namely geographic, kinship and chatting networks, as well as several different measures of political participation and electoral knowledge – namely, self-reports, behavioral and actual voting measures. These data were purposely collected around the time of the 2009 elections in Mozambique, a country with substantial emigration to neighboring countries and with one of the lowest political participation rates in the southern Africa region. The empirical results show that the number of migrants an individual is in close contact through regular chatting within a village significantly increases political participation of residents in that village – more so than family links to migrants. Our findings are consistent with both improved knowledge about political processes, and increased intrinsic motivation for political participation being transmitted through migrant networks. These results are robust to controlling for self-selection into migration as well as endogenous network formation. Our work is potentially relevant for the many contexts of South-South migration where both countries of origin and destination are imperfect political systems. It shows that even in this context there may be domestic gains arising from international emigration. ; authorsversion ; published

What is the role of international migrants and, specifically, migrant networks in shaping political attitudes and behavior in migrant sending countries? Our theoretical framework proposes that migration might change individual social identities and thus stimulate intrinsic motivation for political participation, while it may also improve knowledge about better quality political institutions. Hence, international migration might increase political awareness and participation both by migrants and by other individuals in their networks. To test this hypothesis, we use detailed data on different migrant networks (geographic, kinship, and chatting networks), as well as several different measures of political participation and electoral knowledge (self-reports, behavioral, and actual voting measures). These data were purposely collected around the time of the 2009 elections in Mozambique, a country with substantial emigration to neighboring countries – especially South Africa - and with one of the lowest political participation rates in the region. The empirical results show that the number of migrants an individual is in close contact with via regular chatting significantly increases political participation of residents in that village – more so than family links to migrants. Our findings are consistent with both improved knowledge about political processes and increased intrinsic motivation for political participation being transmitted through migrant networks. These results are robust to controlling for self-selection into migration as well as endogenous network formation. Our work is relevant for the many contexts of South-South migration where both countries of origin and destination are recent democracies. It shows that even in this context there may be domestic gains arising from international emigration.

Voter education campaigns often aim to increase voter particpation and political accountability. We follow randomized interventions implemented nationwide during the 2009 Mozambican elections using a free newspaper, leaflets, and text messaging. We investigate whether treatment effects were transmitted through social networks (kinship and chatting) and geographical proximity. For individuals personally targeted by the campaign, we estimate the reinforcement effect of proximity to other targeted individuals. For untargeted individuals, we estimate the diffusion of the campaign depending on a proximity to targeted individuals. We find evidence for both effects, similar across the different treatments and across the different connectedness measures. We observe that the treatments worked through the networks by raising the levels of information and interest about the election, in line with the average treatment effects of voter education on voter participation. We interpret this result as a free riding effect, likely to occur for costly actions ; International Growth Centre, Foundation Open Society Institute