IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed015/888.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Macroeconomics of Rural-Urban Migration

Author

Listed:
  • Mike Waugh

    (New York University)

  • David Lagakos

    (University of California, San Diego)

Abstract

This paper uses new tracking surveys for several developing countries to analyze rural-urban migration and their macroeconomic implications. We document that migrants from rural to urban areas typically experience large consumption growth one year after migrating, though overall migration rates are low. To understand these facts we build a model that generates a rural-urban gap in average consumption due to three factors: income risk from migration, worker sorting, and disutility from migration. We structurally estimate the model and assess the relative importance of each factor in explaining rural-urban consumption gaps. We then cross-check the model's predictions using evidence from a controlled migration experiment. Quantitative experiments using the model provide guidance about the quantitative importance of migration policy on aggregate consumption growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Mike Waugh & David Lagakos, 2015. "The Macroeconomics of Rural-Urban Migration," 2015 Meeting Papers 888, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed015:888
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2015/paper_888.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:red:sed015:888. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.