Measuring Information Frictions in Migration Decisions: A Revealed-Preference Approach

Charly Porcher, Eduardo Morales and Thomas Fujiwara

No 32413, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We investigate the role of information frictions in migration. Using novel moment inequalities and data on internal migration in Brazil, we estimate worker preferences and migration costs while allowing for unobserved worker-specific information sets. We find that common estimation procedures overestimate migration costs and underestimate the importance of expected wages in migration decisions. Model specification tests indicate that workers often have limited information on location-specific wages. However, those living in regions with better internet access and larger populations have more precise wage information, and information precision decreases with distance. According to our estimated model, workers’ limited wage information plays a quantitatively important role in reducing migration flows and worker welfare, and limits the effect of policies that reduce migration costs.

JEL-codes: F10 J61 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-int, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
Note: DEV ITI LS
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32413.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32413

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w32413
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().