Experimental Approaches in Migration Studies

20 Pages Posted: 24 Aug 2010

See all articles by David J. McKenzie

David J. McKenzie

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Dean Yang

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Department of Economics

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Abstract

The decision of whether or not to migrate has far-reaching consequences for the lives of individuals and their families. But the very nature of this choice makes identifying the impacts of migration difficult, since it is hard to measure a credible counterfactual of what the person and their household would have been doing had migration not occurred. Migration experiments provide a clear and credible way for identifying this counterfactual, and thereby allowing causal estimation of the impacts of migration. We provide an overview and critical review of the three strands of this approach: policy experiments, natural experiments, and researcher-led field experiments. The purpose is to introduce readers to the need for this approach, give examples of where it has been applied in practice, and draw out lessons for future work in this area.

Keywords: migration, remittances, experiment, identification, self-selection

JEL Classification: O12, J61, F22, C21

Suggested Citation

McKenzie, David John and Yang, Dean and Yang, Dean, Experimental Approaches in Migration Studies. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5125, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1663165 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1663165

David John McKenzie (Contact Author)

World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG) ( email )

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IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

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Dean Yang

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://www.umich.edu/~deanyang/

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Department of Economics

611 Tappan Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220
United States

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