Econ Seminar: Giacomo Battiston (Rockwool Foundation)

Informing Risky Migration: Evidence from a field experiment in Guinea

Can information provision to potential migrants affect risky and irregular migration? We address this question conducting a large-scale randomized experiment with over 7,000 secondary school students in Guinea. We provide information through videotestimonies by migrants who settled in Europe and through aggregate statistics. We implement three treatments: (i) information about the risks and costs of the journey; (ii) information about economic outcomes in the destination country; and (iii) a combination of (i) and (ii). One month after the intervention, all the treatments led to students updating their beliefs about the risks and the economic outcomes of migration and to decrease their wishes, plans, preparations for migrations. One year later, the risk treatment leads to a 51% reduction in migration outside Guinea.