Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/193389 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12095
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
'Guest workers' earn higher wages overseas on temporary low-skill employment visas. This wage effect can quantify global inefficiencies in the pure spatial allocation of labor between poorer and richer countries. But rigorous estimates are rare, complicated by migrant self-selection. This paper tests the effects of guest work on Indian applicants to a construction job in the United Arab Emirates, where a crisis exogenously influenced job placement. Guest work raised the return to labor by a factor of four, implying large spatial inefficiency. Short-term effects on households were modest. Effects on information, debt, and later migration were incompatible with systematic fraud.
Subjects: 
income
human capital
migration
labor
mobility
guest work
India
gulf
construction
worker
selection
migrant
temporary
visa
wage
education
crisis
low-skill
unskilled
credit
exploited
naive
regret
slavery
trafficking
debt
coerced
cheated
JEL: 
F22
J6
O12
O16
O19
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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