Events at CERGE-EI
Monday, 16 March, 2026 | 14:00 | Room 402 | Applied Micro Research Seminar
Cátia Batista (Nova School of Business and Economics) "From Destination to Origin: Experimental Evidence on the International Spillovers of Migrant Integration"
Nova School of Business and Economics, Portugal
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Meeting number: 2744 429 7047
Meeting password: 533195
Authors: Catia Batista, Lara Bohnet, Jules Gazeaud and Julia Seither
Abstract: International migration can promote development in both origin and destination countries. We hypothesize that migrant integration in destination countries is an important constraint on these gains. Using a randomized controlled trial, we study the effects of a low-cost, scalable digital intervention designed to reduce information frictions among Cape Verdean immigrants in Portugal. Access to the intervention improves migrants’ labor market outcomes, legal status, social integration with native-born individuals, and aspirations. These integration gains generate international spillovers, increasing political participation and leading to more egalitarian gender norms in the migrants’ origin-country. Leveraging variation in official destination country electoral data, we show that political participation transmits through increased exposure of better-integrated migrants to prevalent local norms at destination. These international turnout spillovers are weaker in localities with higher far-right support, consistent with a less migrant welcoming political climate attenuating norm diffusion.
Keywords: International Migration, Migrant Integration, Randomized Field Experiment, Employment, Immigrant Regularization, Remittances, Voting, Gender Norms.
JEL Codes: F22, J61, O15.
