IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fao/wpaper/0316.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Public Transfers Reduce Mexican Migration? A study based on randomized experimental data

Author

Listed:
  • Guy Stecklov
  • Paul Winters
  • Marco Stampini
  • Benjamin Davis

    (Agricultural and Development Economics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization)

Abstract

Prior research on Mexican migration has shown that social networks and economic incentives play an important role in determining migration outcomes. This study utilizes experimental data on PROGRESA, Mexico's primary poverty reduction program, to evaluate the effects of public cash transfers on migration. Our study complements a growing body of literature aimed at overcoming longstanding hurdles towards the establishment of causal validity in empirical studies of migration. We find that public cash transfers reduce US migration but have little effect on domestic migration. Furthermore, we find that the provision of cash transfers appears to reduce migration partly by reducing the relative deprivation levels of poor households. Finally, we find that the effect of public cash transfers on US migration depend on the size of existing US migration networks. Surprisingly, we see that transfers have larger (more negative) effects on US migration in communities with large existing networks. The results suggest that public transfers may be helpful in managing rural out-migration, particularly to the US. Interestingly, such programs may be most effective if they are targeted towards communities with strong existing migration patterns.

Suggested Citation

  • Guy Stecklov & Paul Winters & Marco Stampini & Benjamin Davis, 2003. "Can Public Transfers Reduce Mexican Migration? A study based on randomized experimental data," Working Papers 03-16, Agricultural and Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO - ESA).
  • Handle: RePEc:fao:wpaper:0316
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/007/ae049e/ae049e00.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. B. Davis & P. Winters, 2001. "Gender, Networks and Mexico-US Migration," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 1-26.
    2. Todaro, Michael P, 1969. "A Model for Labor Migration and Urban Unemployment in Less Developed Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 138-148, March.
    3. Larry A. Sjaastad, 1970. "The Costs and Returns of Human Migration," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Harry W. Richardson (ed.), Regional Economics, chapter 9, pages 115-133, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Stark, Oded & Bloom, David E, 1985. "The New Economics of Labor Migration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 173-178, May.
    5. Chiswick, Barry R, 1978. "The Effect of Americanization on the Earnings of Foreign-born Men," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(5), pages 897-921, October.
    6. Katharine Donato & Jorge Durand & Douglas Massey, 1992. "Stemming the tide? Assessing the deterrent effects of the immigration reform and control act," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 29(2), pages 139-157, May.
    7. Heckman, James J. & Lalonde, Robert J. & Smith, Jeffrey A., 1999. "The economics and econometrics of active labor market programs," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 31, pages 1865-2097, Elsevier.
    8. Benjamin Davis & Guy Stecklov & Paul Winters, 2002. "Domestic and International Migration from Rural Mexico: Disaggregating the effects of network structure and composition," Working Papers 02-13, Agricultural and Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO - ESA).
    9. Stark, Oded & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1982. "Migration, growth, distribution and welfare," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 10(3-4), pages 243-249.
    10. Stark, Oded & Levhari, David, 1982. "On Migration and Risk in LDCs," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 191-196, October.
    11. Sadoulet, Elisabeth & Janvry, Alain de & Davis, Benjamin, 2001. "Cash Transfer Programs with Income Multipliers: PROCAMPO in Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1043-1056, June.
    12. Stark, Oded, 1984. "Rural-to-Urban Migration in LDCs: A Relative Deprivation Approach," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(3), pages 475-486, April.
    13. 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.
    14. Peter Mueser, 1989. "Measuring the impact of locational characteristics on migration: Interpreting cross-sectional analyses," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 26(3), pages 499-513, August.
    15. James P. Smith & Duncan Thomas, 2003. "Remembrances of things past: test–retest reliability of retrospective migration histories," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 166(1), pages 23-49, February.
    16. Deaton, Angus, 1992. "Understanding Consumption," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288244.
    17. Skoufias, Emmanuel & Davis, Benjamin & de la Vega, Sergio, 2001. "Targeting the Poor in Mexico: An Evaluation of the Selection of Households into PROGRESA," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(10), pages 1769-1784, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Angelucci, Manuela, 2004. "Aid and Migration: An Analysis of the Impact of Progresa on the Timing and Size of Labour Migration," IZA Discussion Papers 1187, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Oliver, Azuara, 2009. "Does Poverty Alleviation Increase Migration? Evidence from Mexico," MPRA Paper 17599, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Mora Rivera, José Jorge. & Arellano-González, Jesús., 2012. "Migration and Remittances Effects on Consumption of the Poorest : the Mexican Case," Panorama Económico, Escuela Superior de Economía, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, vol. 0(14), pages 121-163, primer se.
    4. Zezza, Alberto & Carletto, Calogero & Davis, Benjamin, 2005. "Moving away from poverty: A spatial analysis of poverty and migration in Albania," ESA Working Papers 289076, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA).

    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. Shyamal Chowdhury & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak & Gharad Bryan, 2009. "Migrating Away from a Seasonal Famine: A Randomized Intervention in Bangladesh," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2009-41, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), revised Sep 2009.
    2. Gordon H. Hanson, 2006. "Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 869-924, December.
    3. Quinones, Esteban J. & Barham, Bradford L., 2018. "Endogenous Selection, Migration and Occupation Outcomes for Rural Southern Mexicans," Staff Paper Series 587, University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    4. Guy Stecklov & Paul Winters & Marco Stampini & Benjamin Davis, 2005. "Do conditional cash transfers influence migration? A study using experimental data from the Mexican progresa program," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 42(4), pages 769-790, November.
    5. Daniel Rauhut & Birgit Aigner-Walder & Rahel M. Schomaker, 2023. "Economic Theory and Migration," Springer Books, in: The Economics of Immigration Beyond the Cities, chapter 0, pages 21-50, Springer.
    6. Tineke Fokkema & Eralba Cela & Elena Ambrosetti, 2013. "Giving from the Heart or from the Ego? Motives behind Remittances of the Second Generation in Europe," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3), pages 539-572, September.
    7. Sergio Vergalli, 2011. "Entry and Exit Strategies in Migration Dynamics," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 362-389, December.
    8. Hagen-Zanker, Jessica, 2010. "Modest expectations: Causes and effects of migration on migrant households in source countries," MPRA Paper 29507, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. M. Moretto & Sergio Vergalli, 2008. "Migration dynamics," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 93(3), pages 223-265, April.
    10. Abramitzky, Ran & Boustan, Leah Platt & Eriksson, Katherine, 2013. "Have the poor always been less likely to migrate? Evidence from inheritance practices during the age of mass migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 2-14.
    11. Arland Thornton & Prem Bhandari & Jeffrey Swindle & Nathalie Williams & Linda Young-DeMarco & Cathy Sun & Christina Hughes, 2020. "Fatalistic Beliefs and Migration Behaviors: A Study of Ideational Demography in Nepal," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 39(4), pages 643-670, August.
    12. Paul Winters & Alain de Janvry & Elisabeth Sadoulet, 2001. "Family and Community Networks in Mexico-U.S. Migration," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 36(1), pages 159-184.
    13. Milo Bianchi, 2013. "Immigration Policy and Self-Selecting Migrants," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 15(1), pages 1-23, February.
    14. McKenzie, David J., 2006. "A profile of the world's young developing country migrants," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4021, The World Bank.
    15. Stecklov, Guy & Carletto, Calogero & Azzarri, Carlo & Davis, Benjamin, 2008. "Agency, education and networks: Gender and international migration from Albania," ESA Working Papers 289030, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA).
    16. Deb, Partha & Seck, Papa, 2009. "Internal Migration, Selection Bias and Human Development: Evidence from Indonesia and Mexico," MPRA Paper 19214, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. William Herrin & John Knight & Arsene Balihuta, 2009. "Migration and Wealth Accumulation in Uganda," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 165-179, August.
    18. Richter, Susan M. & Taylor, J. Edward, 2005. "Policy Reforms and the Gender Dynamics of Rural Mexico-to-U.S. Migration," Working Papers 190909, University of California, Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    19. Irudaya S. Rajan & Pooja Batra & Reddy Sai Shiva Jayanth & Tharatha Moolayil Sivadasan, 2023. "Understanding the multifaceted impact of COVID‐19 on migrants in Kerala, India," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 41(1), January.
    20. Kazi Abdul, Mannan & V.V, Kozlov, 1999. "Migration Decision-Making among Bangladeshi Migrants in Italy: A Combined Model Approach," MPRA Paper 103212, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 1999.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Debt; Economics; Income transfers; Mexico; Migration; Poverty; Rural urban migration; Social conditions; Social policies; Urban rural migration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    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:fao:wpaper:0316. 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: Gustavo Anríquez (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/faoooit.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.