Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP13326
Authors: Guido Friebel; Miriam Manchin; Mariapia Mendola; Giovanni Prarolo
Abstract: Irregular migrants from Africa and the Middle East flow into Europe along land and sea routes under the control of human smugglers. The demise of the Gaddafi regime in 2011 marked the opening of the Central Mediterranean Route for irregular border crossing between Libya andItaly. This resulted in the immediate expansion of the global smuggling network, which produced an asymmetric reduction in bilateral distance between country pairs across the Mediterranean sea. We exploit this source of spatial and time variation in irregular migration routes to estimate the elasticity of migration intentions to illegal moving costs proxied by distance. We build a novel dataset of geolocalized time-varying migration routes, combined with cross-country survey data on individual intentions to move from Africa (and the Middle East) into Europe. Netting out any country-by-time and pair-level confounders we find a large negative effect of distance along smuggling routes on individual migration intentions. Shorter distances increase the willingness to migrate especially for youth, (medium) skilled individuals and those with a network abroad. The effect is stronger in countries closer to Libya and with weak rule of law.
Keywords: international migration; human smuggling; illegal migration; Libyan civil war
JEL Codes: K23; K42
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Transportation costs (L91) | migration intentions (F22) |
| Shorter distance along smuggling routes (F12) | migration intentions (F22) |
| Distance shock (R22) | migration intentions (F22) |
| Distance along smuggling routes (F55) | migration intentions for youth (J61) |
| Distance along smuggling routes (F55) | migration intentions for medium-skilled individuals (J61) |
| Distance along smuggling routes (F55) | migration intentions for individuals with networks abroad (J61) |