Returns to International Migration: Evidence from a Bangladesh-Malaysia Visa Lottery

Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, Iffath Sharif and Maheshwor Shrestha

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 353-88

Abstract: South Asians traveling to richer Asian nations is the world's largest migration corridor. We track down applicants to a government lottery that randomly allocated visas to Bangladeshis for temporary labor contracts in Malaysia, five years later. Most lottery winners migrate, and migrants' earnings triple. Their remittance raises their family's standard of living in Bangladesh. The migrant's absence pauses marriage and childbirth and shifts decision-making power toward females. Migration removes enterprising individuals, lowering household entrepreneurship, but does not crowd out other family members' labor supply. A deferred migration offer never materialized for a subgroup. Their premigration investments in skills generate no returns in the domestic market.

JEL-codes: F22 F24 I31 J24 J31 J82 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1257/app.20220258

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