Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/171045 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 11061
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Despite the large individual benefits of guest work by the poor in rich countries, agencies charged with global poverty reduction do little to facilitate guest work. This may be because guest work is viewed as a repugnant transaction – one whose harmful side-effects might cause third parties to discourage it. This paper sets out six criteria for a transaction to be repugnant in consequentialist terms, and conducts uncommon tests for repugnance: It uses these criteria to formulate several empirical tests for the repugnance of guest work by Indian construction workers in the United Arab Emirates. It separates the effects of guest work from the correlates of guest work using a natural experiment that quasi-exogenously allocated guest work among a group of several thousand job applicants. The effects offer little evidence that guest work in this setting is typically the cause of repugnant consequences.
Subjects: 
migration
guestwork
temporary
Gulf
Dubai
UAE
rights
abuse
exploitation
migrant
immigrant
labor
mobility
scheme
visa
construction
seasonal
repugnant
externality
regret
behavioral
JEL: 
F22
J6
O12
O16
O19
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
876.7 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.