TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Clemens, Michael A.
        TI  - Measuring the Spatial Misallocation of Labor: The Returns to India-Gulf Guest Work in a Natural Experiment
        PY  - 2019/Jan/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 12095
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp12095
        AB  - 'Guest workers' earn higher wages overseas on temporary low-skill employment visas. This wage effect can quantify global inefficiencies in the pure spatial allocation of labor between poorer and richer countries. But rigorous estimates are rare, complicated by migrant self-selection. This paper tests the effects of guest work on Indian applicants to a construction job in the United Arab Emirates, where a crisis exogenously influenced job placement. Guest work raised the return to labor by a factor of four, implying large spatial inefficiency. Short-term effects on households were modest. Effects on information, debt, and later migration were incompatible with systematic fraud.
        KW  - income
KW  - human capital
KW  - migration
KW  - labor
KW  - mobility
KW  - guest work
KW  - India
KW  - gulf
KW  - construction
KW  - worker
KW  - selection
KW  - migrant
KW  - temporary
KW  - visa
KW  - wage
KW  - education
KW  - crisis
KW  - low-skill
KW  - unskilled
KW  - credit
KW  - exploited
KW  - naive
KW  - regret
KW  - slavery
KW  - trafficking
KW  - debt
KW  - coerced
KW  - cheated
        ER  -