INVITES :
- Catia Batista (Nova School of Business and Economics) ;
- Riccardo Turati (UCLouvain).
HORAIRES ET LIEU :
- 16:30–19:00
- PSE, 48 Bd Jourdan 75014 Paris, Salle R1-09
RESUMES :
Catia Batista (Nova School of Business and Economics): Testing Classic Theories of Migration in the Lab (travail conjoint avec David McKenzie)
We use incentivized laboratory experiments to investigate how potential migrants make decisions between working in different destinations in order to test the predictions of different classic theories of migration. We test theories of income maximization, migrant skill-selection, and multi-destination choice and how the predictions and behavior under these theories vary as we vary migration costs, liquidity constraints, risk, social benefits, and incomplete information. We show how the basic income maximization model of migration with selection on observed and unobserved skills leads to a much higher migration rate and more negative skill-selection than is obtained when migration decisions take place under more realistic assumptions. Second, we find evidence of a home bias, where simply labelling a destination as “home” causes more people to choose that location. Thirdly, we investigate whether the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) assumption holds. We find it holds for most people when decisions just involve wages, costs, and liquidity constraints. However, once we add a risk of unemployment and incomplete information, IIA no longer holds for about 20 percent of our sample.
Riccardo Turati (UCLouvain): Network-based Connectedness and the Diffusion of Cultural Traits
This paper empirically investigates the impact of network-based connectedness on the diffusion of cultural traits. Using Gallup World Poll data over 148 countries on individual connectedness, opinions and beliefs, we find that individuals who have a connection abroad are associated with higher levels of social behavior, religiosity and gender-egalitarian attitudes. The effect is stronger among individuals living in regions characterized by low levels of religiosity and gender-egalitarian views, suggesting that migration favors cultural convergence across regions along those traits. The effects are robust to connectedness diffusion, and country and individual openness towards foreign countries. The cultural effects of connectedness on each trait are stronger among less educated individuals rather then highly educated ones. The effects are also robust to a set of propensity score matching and covariates matching techniques, undermining the potential threat driven by selection into connectedness by observables. Statistical tests are carefully implemented to quantify the selection threat driven by unobserved factors, which appears negligible. The effects are sizeable on social behavior and gender-egalitarian views, particularly on low educated individuals, once simulations based on estimated coefficients are performed. Although robust, the pro-religiosity effect of connectedness is limited and negligible.