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Migrating Away from a Seasonal Famine: A Randomized Intervention in Bangladesh

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  • Chowdhury, Shyamal
  • Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq
  • Bryan, Gharad

Abstract

The rural northwestern districts of Bangladesh, home to 10 million people, experience a preharvest seasonal famine, locally known as Monga, with disturbing regularity. Surprisingly, outmigration from the Monga-prone districts is not all that common. This research tests whether migration could play any role in Monga mitigation. We implemented a randomized intervention that provided monetary incentives to individuals in Monga-prone regions to seasonally outmigrate during the pre-harvest season. We experimentally varied the conditionalities attached to the incentives, such as a requirement to form a group and migrate jointly (as opposed to migrating individually), sometimes assigning migration partners and the destination, and varying group size. This paper reports just the first stage results of this randomized intervention project, where we focus on household responsiveness to our incentive offers in terms of their decision to migrate. Our cash and credit incentives had a very large effect on migration propensity: over 40% of those receiving an incentive choose to migrate, whereas only 13% of control households do. This large effect is consistent with the presence of savings or borrowing constraints for these households, since providing information on wages and employment conditions at destinations only has a negligible 2 percentage point impact on the propensity to migrate relative to the control group.

Suggested Citation

  • Chowdhury, Shyamal & Mobarak, Ahmed Mushfiq & Bryan, Gharad, 2009. "Migrating Away from a Seasonal Famine: A Randomized Intervention in Bangladesh," MPRA Paper 19224, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:19224
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Todaro, Michael P, 1969. "A Model for Labor Migration and Urban Unemployment in Less Developed Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 138-148, March.
    2. Stark, Oded & Bloom, David E, 1985. "The New Economics of Labor Migration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 173-178, May.
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    4. Harris, John R & Todaro, Michael P, 1970. "Migration, Unemployment & Development: A Two-Sector Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 126-142, March.
    5. Larry A. Sjaastad, 1970. "The Costs and Returns of Human Migration," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Harry W. Richardson (ed.), Regional Economics, chapter 9, pages 115-133, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Beatriz Armendariz & Jonathan Morduch, 2007. "The Economics of Microfinance," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262512017, December.
    7. Stark, Oded & Levhari, David, 1982. "On Migration and Risk in LDCs," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 191-196, October.
    8. Kaivan Munshi, 2003. "Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 549-599.
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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Borrowing constraints and (seasonal) famines
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2010-01-19 21:00:00

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    Cited by:

    1. Shahidur R. Khandker & M. A. Baqui Khalily & Hussain A. Samad, 2012. "Seasonal Hunger and Its Mitigation in North-West Bangladesh," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(12), pages 1750-1764, December.
    2. Maxmillan Martin & Yi hyun Kang & Motasim Billah & Tasneem Siddiqui & Richard Black & Dominic Kniveton, 2017. "Climate-influenced migration in Bangladesh: The need for a policy realignment," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35, pages 357-379, October.
    3. Aker, Jenny C. & Clemens, Michael A. & Ksoll, Christopher, 2011. "Mobiles and mobility: The Effect of Mobile Phones on Migration in Niger," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 2, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    4. Khandker, Shahidur R., 2012. "Seasonality of income and poverty in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 244-256.
    5. Jonathan Colmer, 2013. "Climate Variability, Child Labour and Schooling: Evidence on the Intensive and Extensive Margin," GRI Working Papers 132, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    6. Benjamin Marx & Thomas Stoker & Tavneet Suri, 2013. "The Economics of Slums in the Developing World," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(4), pages 187-210, Fall.
    7. Khandker, Shahidur R. & Khaleque, M. Abdul & Samad, Hussain A., 2011. "Can social safety nets alleviate seasonal deprivation ? evidence from northwest Bangladesh," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5865, The World Bank.
    8. Silva, Cinthya & Pino, Gabriel, 2024. "Financial inclusion and roof quality: Satellite evidence from Chilean slums," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monga; famine; Bangladesh; migration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

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