How important is selection ? Experimental versus non-experimental measures of the income gains from migration, Vol. 1 of 1

About

Countries

Data & Research

Learning

News

Projects & Operations

Publications

Topics

Home > Data & Research > Research > Author Profile > Report Details

How important is selection ? Experimental versus non-experimental measures of the income gains from migration

Author:	McKenzie, David; Gibson, John; Stillman, Steven;	Collection Title:	Policy, Research working paper ; no. WPS 3906
Country:	New Zealand; Tonga;	Date Stored:	2006/05/01
Document Date:	2006/05/01	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Region:	East Asia and Pacific
Report Number:	WPS3906	SubTopics:	Poverty Monitoring & Analysis; Economic Theory & Research; Regional Governance; Inequality; Poverty Impact Evaluation
Volume No:	1 of 1

Summary: Measuring the gain in income from migration is complicated by non-random selection of migrants from the general population, making it difficult to obtain an appropriate comparison group of non-migrants. This paper uses a migrant lottery to overcome this problem, providing an experimental measure of the income gains from migration. New Zealand allows a quota of Tongans to immigrate each year with a lottery to choose among the excess number of applicants. A unique survey conducted by the authors in these two countries allows experimental estimates of the income gains from migration by comparing the incomes of migrants to those who applied to migrate, but whose names were not drawn in the lottery, after allowing for the effect of non-compliance among some of those whose names were drawn. The authors also conducted a survey of individuals who did not apply for the lottery. Comparing this non-applicant group with the migrants enables assessment of the degree to which non-experimental methods can provide an unbiased estimate of the income gains from migration. They find evidence of migrants being positively selected in terms of both observed and unobserved skills. As a result, non-experimental methods are found to overstate the gains from migration, by 9 to 82 percent. A good instrumental variable works best, while difference-in-differences and bias-adjusted propensity-score matching also perform comparatively well.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 47 pages	Official version*	0.37
	Text	Text version**

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/O8348BZSI0