发表时间: 2017/3/29 23:01:59
摘要: Numerous empirical studies have documented a strong association between social networks and individuals' migration decisions. Few papers formally analyse how social networks affect both migration decisions that affect the evolution of social networks overtime, and labor market outcomes. In order to understand these relationships, I develop and estimate a dynamic model with return and repeated migration, social network investment decisions and labor market transitions. The model distinguishes between two channels through which social networks may affect migration decisions: (1) a direct effect on migration costs and (2) an indirect effect on labor market outcomes through the job arrival rate. I use the model to study one of the largest ongoing internal migrations in human history: rural-urban migration in China. To estimate the model, I use panel data from the Chinese Household Income Project (2007-2009). The estimation results show that social networks affect both channels significantly. Individuals with networks have 40% higher job arrival rate than those without networks on average. In addition, social networks reduce average migration costs by 7%. I also show that policies that directly lower migration costs may be more cost effective at increasing rural-urban migration in China. These policy experiments also show that without considering the impact of network investment, the government has to spend more to offset the effect of no investment in social networks.