Using data for Morocco, the paper provides further evidence that international migration fosters the transfer of political and social norms.

Read more in:


Michele Tuccio, Jackline Wahba and Bachir Hamdouch: “International migration as a driver of political and social change: evidence from Morocco”
Journal of Population Economics, online, issue forthcoming.

Journal Website. Download PDF of article for free – OPEN ACCESS

GLO Fellows Michele Tuccio, Jackline Wahba and Bachir Hamdouch

Author Abstract: This paper focuses on the impact of international migration on the transfer of political and social norms. Exploiting recent and unique data on Morocco, this paper explores whether households with return and current migrants bear different political preferences and behaviors than non-migrant families. Once controlling for the double selection into emigration and return migration, the findings suggest that having a returnee in the household increases the demand for political and social change. This result is driven by returnees mostly from Western European countries, who were exposed to more democratic norms in the destination. However, we find a negative impact of having a current migrant on the willingness of the left-behind households to change. This result is driven by migrants to non-Western countries, where the quality of political and social institutions is lower. Our results are robust to also controlling for destination selectivity.

Ends;