Do you want to migrate to the United States? Migration intentions and Cultural Traits in Latin America

Riccardo Turati

Working Papers from Department of Applied Economics at Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona

Abstract: This paper empirically investigates whether aspiring emigrants from nineteen Latin American countries to the United States hold a different set of cultural traits compared to stayers. Using Gallup World Poll data and proxy on individual pro social behaviors and political attitudes towards the president of the United States, we observe that aspiring migrants share more pro social behaviors and support more the U.S. political leader than stayers. We find that already existing migration network reduces cultural selection on social behaviors, which holds mainly among the young and less educated population, and in less developed countries. The paper shows that such cultural self-selection is unlikely to affect the distribution of cultural traits in the origin countries, avoiding potential negative effects for Latin American countries. If any, culturally selected immigrants should have a beneficial effect to the United States

Keywords: International migration; migration intentions; self-selection; cultural traits; Latin America region (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-int, nep-lam, nep-mig and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uab:wprdea:wpdea2101

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