Media Exposure and Internal Migration: Evidence from Indonesia

58 Pages Posted: 16 Oct 2011

See all articles by Lidia Farré

Lidia Farré

Universidad de Alicante; Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) - Institute for Economic Analysis

Francesco Fasani

Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) - Insitute for Economic Analysis

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of television on internal migration in Indonesia. We exploit the differential introduction of private television throughout the country and the variation in signal reception due to topography to estimate the causal effect of media exposure. Our estimates reveal important long and short run effects. An increase of one standard deviation in the number of private TV channels received in the area of residence reduces future inter-provincial migration by 1.7-2.7 percentage points, and all migration (inter and intra-provincial) by 4-7.4 percentage points. Short run effects are slightly smaller, but still sizeable and statistically significant. We also show that respondents less exposed to private TV are more likely to consider themselves among the poorest groups of the society. As we discuss in a stylized model of migration choice under imperfect information, these findings are consistent with Indonesia citizens over-estimating the net gains from internal migration.

Keywords: information, migration decisions, television

JEL Classification: J61, L82, O15

Suggested Citation

Farré, Lidia and Farré, Lidia and Fasani, Francesco, Media Exposure and Internal Migration: Evidence from Indonesia. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6012, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1944715 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1944715

Lidia Farré (Contact Author)

Universidad de Alicante ( email )

Campus de San Vicente
Carretera San Vicente del Raspeig
San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante 03690
Spain

Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) - Institute for Economic Analysis ( email )

UAB Campus
E-08193 Bellaterra
Spain

Francesco Fasani

Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) - Insitute for Economic Analysis ( email )

Campus de la UAB
Bellaterra, Barcelona 08193
Spain

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