EA - Large-scale International Educational Migration: A Shallow Investigation by Johannes Haushofer

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Large-scale International Educational Migration: A Shallow Investigation, published by Johannes Haushofer on August 12, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Jasmin Baier, Johannes Haushofer, Hannah Lea Shaw with input from Toman Barsbai and Merve Demirel 1. Introduction Two thirds of the world’s population live on less than $10 per day (Our World in Data), and 60% of the global variability in income is explained by where one is born (Milanovich, 2015). Perhaps as a result, many people want to permanently migrate to another country: in low-income countries, the share ranges from 20–59%; among Africans under 25, it is 33% (Gallup World Poll, own calculations; Figure 1). At the same time, many high-income countries experience significant gaps in their labor force, both in terms of skills and raw numbers, resulting from low birth rates and aging populations. The OECD estimates that this workforce gap will amount to 450 million people by 2050. These figures suggest that increased international migration would have benefits both for migrants themselves, and for destination countries. Indeed, the economic benefits of removing international migration barriers amount to large fractions of world GDP — one or two orders of magnitude larger than those of trade barriers (Clemens, 2011). Recognizing this, many high-income countries are actively working to reduce migration barriers. This is especially true for educational migration: many countries are working towards internationalizing their higher education systems, simplifying student visa and work requirements, and reducing tuition costs (e.g., in the case of Germany, keeping university completely free, even for third-country nationals). For the migrants, international educational migration provides access to the labor market in the destination country, and additionally combines the returns to migration with those to education. The goal of this investigation is therefore to explore international educational migration as a possible mechanism to increase migration opportunities and alleviate poverty. 2. Potential Impact 2.1 Direct Economic Impact on Migrants Cross-country estimates of the returns to migration suggest potential impacts on income around 1,500% (Figure 2). Studies that permit causal claims have shown that international migration generates income increases of several hundreds of percent. For instance, labor migrants from Tonga to New Zealand increase their income by 263% one year after migration (McKenzie, Stillman, and Gibson 2010). Similarly, Mobarak et al. (2020) estimate returns of around 200% in terms of income from low-skilled migration between Bangladesh and Malaysia. Because these studies estimate individual economic gains from labor migration, often low-skill, we view these estimates as lower bounds for the impact of educational migration, which combines the benefits of migration with those of education. Specifically, education itself has large returns, on the order of 10% per year (Peet, Fink, and Fawzi 2015). Importantly, these returns are unlikely to decay over time. (This stands in sharp contrast to e.g. cash transfer programs, whose effects have been shown to dissipate over time; e.g. Blattman, Fiala, and Martinez 2020). Unfortunately, we are not aware of causal evidence on the returns to international educational migration. However, to provide a concrete example for the likely returns, we briefly summarize estimates for the impact of the educational migration program Malengo, with which we are associated. Malengo enables Ugandan secondary school graduates to apply for and complete an English-taught Bachelor’s program in Germany. The cost of the program per student net of administration costs is EUR 11,971, which includes a living expense stipend and semester fees for the first year; application expense...