Moving to Opportunity, Leaving Behind What? Evaluating the Initial Effects of a Migration Policy on Incomes and Poverty in Source Areas

David McKenzie, John Gibson and Steven Stillman
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Steven Stillman: Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

Working Papers in Economics from University of Waikato

Abstract: Migration to New Zealand and consequent remittance inflows are dominant features of many Pacific Island countries. Evaluating the effect of these people and money flows on incomes and poverty in the Pacific is potentially complicated by the non-random selection of emigrants. This paper uses the randomization provided by an immigration ballot under the Pacific Access Category (PAC) of New Zealand’s immigration policy to address this problem. We survey applicants to the 2002-05 PAC ballots in Tonga and compare outcomes for the remaining family of emigrants with those for similar families who were unsuccessful in the ballots. We then contrast these estimates with more conventional ones that construct no-emigration counterfactuals by deducting remittance income from the remaining family of PAC emigrants and adding back the potential home earnings of emigrants. The results suggest that the economic welfare of remaining family may fall in the initial period after members of their household move to New Zealand. We also find that non-experimental methods of constructing counterfactual income are likely to work well only in rare situations where there is random selection of emigrants.

Keywords: emigration; natural experiment; poverty; remittances (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 F22 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2007-11-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Journal Article: Moving to opportunity, leaving behind what? Evaluating the initial effects of a migration policy on incomes and poverty in source areas (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wai:econwp:07/23

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