Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP8202
Authors: Catia Batista; Pedro C. Vicente
Abstract: Can international migration promote better institutions at home by raising the demand for political accountability? In order to examine this question, we designed a behavioral measure of the population?s desire for better governance. A postcard was distributed to households with the pledge that, if enough postcards were mailed back, results from a survey module on perceived corruption would be made public in the national media. Using data from a tailored household survey, we examine the determinants of our behavioral measure of demand for political accountability (i.e. of undertaking the costly action of mailing the postcard), and isolate the positive effect of international emigration using locality level variation. The estimated effects are robust to the use of instrumental variables, including both past migration and macro shocks in the migrant destination countries. We find that the estimated effects can be mainly attributed to those who emigrated to countries with better governance, especially return migrants.
Keywords: Cape Verde; effects of emigration on origin countries governance; household survey; institutions; international migration; political accountability; sub-Saharan Africa
JEL Codes: F22; O12; O15; O43; P16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| perceived corruption in public services (H57) | likelihood of participating in voting experiment (C90) |
| international emigration (F22) | demand for improved political accountability (D72) |
| return migrants (F22) | demand for improved political accountability (D72) |
| emigration to countries with better governance (F22) | demand for improved political accountability (D72) |
| local migration levels (J61) | voting behavior (D72) |