Migration and Informal Insurance

Costas Meghir (), Ahmed Mobarak, Corina Mommaerts and Melanie Morton
Additional contact information
Costas Meghir: Cowles Foundation, Yale University, NBER, IZA, CEPR, and Institute for Fiscal Studies, https://economics.yale.edu/people/faculty/costas-meghir
Corina Mommaerts: University of Wisconsin ' Madison
Melanie Morton: Stanford University and NBER

No 2185R, Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers from Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University

Abstract: Do new migration opportunities for rural households change the nature and extent of informal risk sharing" We experimentally document that randomly offering poor rural households subsidies to migrate leads to a 40% improvement in risk sharing in their villages. Our model of endogenous migration and risk sharing shows that risky and temporary migration opportunities can induce an improvement in risk sharing enabling pro"table migration. Accounting for improved risk sharing, the migration experiment increased welfare by 12.9%. However, permanent declines in migration costs improve outside options for households and can lead to reductions in risk sharing. The short-run experimental results for migration subsidies can differ from the longer-run impacts of a policy that permanently subsidizes migration.

Keywords: Informal Insurance; Migration; Bangladesh; RCT (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D52 D91 O12 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 95 pages
Date: 2019-07, Revised 2020-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-exp, nep-ias, nep-iue and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Migration and Informal Insurance (2021)
Working Paper: Migration and Informal Insurance (2020)
Working Paper: Migration and Informal Insurance (2019)
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