Brain Gain in Late Colonial Indonesia: New Evidence on Chinese Migration and Wages

Mark Hup and Pim de Zwart

No 18748, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: During the "Age of Mass Migration", many Chinese migrants came to colonial Indonesia. We find that these migratory flows included many skilled workers, contrary to the belief that they mostly consisted of unskilled labourers. We construct a new dataset of migration and potential surplus earnings for different types of work for the period ca. 1900-1920. Our analyses show that high earnings for skilled work, but not for unskilled work, strongly incentivized migration. Given the scarcity of skilled labour in Indonesia, the skilled migrants may have significantly contributed to economic growth in general and the growing trade-based sectors in particular.

Keywords: Migration; Wages; Indonesia; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J01 N35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-01
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