Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/90079 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 7863
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Diaspora networks provide information to future migrants and influence both their decision to migrate and their success in the host country. While the existing literature explains the effect of networks on migration decisions through the size of the migrant community, we show that the quality of the network is an equally important determinant. We argue that networks that are more integrated in the society of the host country can give more accurate information about job prospects to future migrants. In a decision model with imperfect signalling we show that migrants with access to a better network are more likely to make the right decision – they migrate only if they gain – and they migrate earlier. We test these predictions empirically using data on recent Mexican migrants to the US, and exploit the geographic diffusion of Mexicans since the 1980s as well as the settlement of immigrants that came during the Bracero program in the 1950s to instrument for the quality of networks. The results provide strong evidence that connections to a better-integrated network lead to better outcomes after migration. Yet we find no evidence that the quality of the network affects the timing of migration.
Subjects: 
diasporas
information
migration
JEL: 
F22
J15
J61
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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