IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jet/dpaper/dpaper82.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Learning by Migrating to a Megalopolis Really Important? Evidence from Thailand

Author

Listed:
  • Machikita, Tomohiro

Abstract

We examine the effects of learning by migrating on the productivity of migrants who move to a "megalopolis" from rural areas using the Thailand Labor Force Survey. The main contribution is to the development a simple framework to test for self-selection on migration decisions and learning by migrating into the urban labor market, focusing on experimental evidence in the observational data. The role of the urban labor market is examined. In conclusion, we find significant evidence for sorting: the self-selection effects test (1) is positive among new entrants from rural areas to the urban labor market; and (2) is negative among new exits that move to rural areas from the urban labor market. Further, estimated effects of learning by migrating into a "megalopolis" have a less significant impact. These results suggest the existence of a natural selection (i.e. survival of the fittest) mechanism in the urban labor market in a developing economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Machikita, Tomohiro, 2006. "Is Learning by Migrating to a Megalopolis Really Important? Evidence from Thailand," IDE Discussion Papers 82, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    • Handle: RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper82
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ir.ide.go.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=38084&item_no=1&attribute_id=22&file_no=1
    File Function: First version, 2006
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 69-85, Fall.
    2. Kenneth I. Wolpin & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2000. "Natural "Natural Experiments" in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(4), pages 827-874, December.
    3. Sofronis K. Clerides & Saul Lach & James R. Tybout, 1998. "Is Learning by Exporting Important? Micro-Dynamic Evidence from Colombia, Mexico, and Morocco," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 903-947.
    4. Gibbons, Robert & Katz, Lawrence F, 1991. "Layoffs and Lemons," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 9(4), pages 351-380, October.
    5. Moretti, Enrico, 2004. "Estimating the social return to higher education: evidence from longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 175-212.
    6. Borjas, George J. & Bronars, Stephen G. & Trejo, Stephen J., 1992. "Self-selection and internal migration in the United States," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 159-185, September.
    7. Henry S. Farber & Robert Gibbons, 1996. "Learning and Wage Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(4), pages 1007-1047.
    8. Wheeler, Christopher H, 2001. "Search, Sorting, and Urban Agglomeration," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(4), pages 879-899, October.
    9. Neal, Derek, 1999. "The Complexity of Job Mobility among Young Men," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 237-261, April.
    10. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Duranton, Gilles & Gobillon, Laurent, 2008. "Spatial wage disparities: Sorting matters!," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 723-742, March.
    11. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 972-990, October.
    12. Dora L. Costa & Matthew E. Kahn, 2000. "Power Couples: Changes in the Locational Choice of the College Educated, 1940–1990," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1287-1315.
    13. Glaeser, Edward L & Mare, David C, 2001. "Cities and Skills," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(2), pages 316-342, April.
    14. Jeffrey J. Yankow, 2003. "Migration, Job Change, and Wage Growth: A New Perspective on the Pecuniary Return to Geographic Mobility," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 483-516, August.
    15. Yamauchi, Futoshi, 2003. "Are experience and schooling complementary?," FCND discussion papers 166, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Gordon B. Dahl, 2002. "Mobility and the Return to Education: Testing a Roy Model with Multiple Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2367-2420, November.
    17. Kaivan Munshi, 2003. "Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 549-599.
    18. Joshua Angrist & Alan Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Working Papers 834, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    19. Tunali, Insan, 2000. "Rationality of Migration," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(4), pages 893-920, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tomohiro Machikita, 2004. "Is Learning by Migrating in Megalopolis Really Important?," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 579, Econometric Society.
    2. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Gilles Duranton & Laurent Gobillon, 2011. "The identification of agglomeration economies," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 253-266, March.
    3. Ham, John C. & Li, Xianghong & Reagan, Patricia B., 2011. "Matching and semi-parametric IV estimation, a distance-based measure of migration, and the wages of young men," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 161(2), pages 208-227, April.
    4. Giordano Mion & Paolo Naticchioni, 2009. "The spatial sorting and matching of skills and firms," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(1), pages 28-55, February.
    5. Alberto Dalmazzo & Guido de Blasio, 2005. "Where do human capital externalities end up?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 554, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    6. Backman, Mikaela, 2013. "Regional Variation of Returns to Education," Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation 300, Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies.
    7. Charlie Karlsson & Börje Johansson & Roger R. Stough, 2012. "Introduction – Human Capital and Agglomeration," Chapters, in: Charlie Karlsson & Börje Johansson & Roger R. Stough (ed.), The Regional Economics of Knowledge and Talent, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Tomohiro Machikita, 2005. "Career Crisis? The Impacts of Financial Shock on Entry-Level Labour Market: Experimental Evidences from Thailand in 1997," Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series d04-79, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    9. Munch, Jakob Roland & Skaksen, Jan Rose, 2008. "Human capital and wages in exporting firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 363-372, July.
    10. Pierre-Philippe Combes & Gilles Duranton & Laurent Gobillon & Sébastien Roux, 2010. "Estimating Agglomeration Economies with History, Geology, and Worker Effects," NBER Chapters, in: Agglomeration Economics, pages 15-66, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. John C. Ham & Xianghong Li & Patricia B. Reagan, 2004. "Propensity Score Matching, a Distance-Based Measure of Migration, and the Wage Growth of Young Men," Working Papers 2004_3, York University, Department of Economics.
    12. Paul Verstraten & Gerard Verweij & Peter Zwaneveld, 2018. "Why do wages grow faster in urban areas? Sorting of high potentials matters," CPB Discussion Paper 377.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    13. Robert Gibbons & Lawrence F. Katz & Thomas Lemieux & Daniel Parent, 2005. "Comparative Advantage, Learning, and Sectoral Wage Determination," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(4), pages 681-724, October.
    14. John V. Winters, 2013. "Human capital externalities and employment differences across metropolitan areas of the USA," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(5), pages 799-822, September.
    15. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C., 2008. "The attenuation of human capital spillovers," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 373-389, September.
    16. Stefan Leknes, 2017. "Churning in thick labor markets. Evidence of heterogeneous responses along the skill and experience gradients," Discussion Papers 866, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    17. Elvery, Joel A., 2010. "City size and skill intensity," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 367-379, November.
    18. Edward L. Glaeser & Joshua D. Gottlieb, 2009. "The Wealth of Cities: Agglomeration Economies and Spatial Equilibrium in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(4), pages 983-1028, December.
    19. Fu, Yuming & Gabriel, Stuart A., 2012. "Labor migration, human capital agglomeration and regional development in China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 473-484.
    20. Börjesson, Maria & Isacsson, Gunnar & Andersson, Matts & Anderstig, Christer, 2018. "Agglomeration, productivity and the role of transport system improvements," Working papers in Transport Economics 2018:16, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Self-selection; Learning by migrating; Survival of the fittest; Exits; Thailand; Population movement; Labor market; 自己選抜効果; 移住学習効果; 自然淘汰; 退出; タイ; 人口移動; 労働市場;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper82. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michitaka Imamitsu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/idegvjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.