PowerPoint Presentation

Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?Evidence from Mali Lisa Chauvet, Marion Mercier2014Presented by Yao Pan and Carlo Santagiustina

04/06/2015

03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?1Yao Pan & Carlo SantagiustinaIntroduction03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?2

Objective of the paper:Explore through a case study the causal links between return migration and political outcomes in the origin country;Case study:Mali, two local ballots in 1998/1999 and 2009;Approach:Use electoral and census data at the locality level to investigate the role of return migration on participation rates and electoral competitiveness;

Yao Pan & Carlo SantagiustinaSummary of the presentation03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?3Introduction Research questionReview of the literature on return migrationCase study descriptionData and identification strategies Model specification and regression on cross sectionEndogeneity concernsResultsConclusion

Yao Pan & Carlo SantagiustinaQuestion: What is the relationship between return migration and electoral outcomes?Focus: Evaluate the effects of return migration on voting participation and on two indicators of electoral competitiveness:The fragmentation of the votes;The winning margin;Why: So far no analysis has looked at the direct impact of return migrants on political outcomes;Africa has never been the field of study to look at the political consequences of migration (with one exception);Research question03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?4Yao Pan & Carlo SantagiustinaReview of the literature 1/203/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?5Four channels through which emigration can affect the quality of political institutions at home (Li and Mc Hale, 2006; Chauvet,2013):

Return migration & the development of the origin countries Better educated individuals are more likely to be active upon return to country of origin, suggesting an accumulation of human capital during migration (Dustmann and Kirchkamp,2002);

Return migrants are a source of dynamism and job-creation for the home economy: Human capital accumulation and physical capital accumulation during migration allow migrants to start up new businesses when returning home (Dmurger and Xu,2011).

The absence channelThe prospect channelThe diaspora channelThe return channelYao Pan & Carlo SantagiustinaReview of the literature 2/203/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?6Knowledge transfer Transfer of fertility norms of Mexican migrants in the U.S.: women living in communities with higher female migration have fewer children. (Lindstrom and Saucedo, 2002)

Transfer of political norms Migrants who settled in Western countries tend to vote differently from the non-migrant population: political preferences thus appear to be affected by the characteristics of the host countries (Fidrmuc and Doyle, 2005). The connections between migrants and their family in the origin country induce the transfer of political ideas and norms (Dedieu et al., 2013).

Yao Pan & Carlo SantagiustinaCase study: Why Mali? 1/203/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?7Mali has a long-lasting history of migration, both within West Africa and to the rest of the world;Mali was referred to as one of the most successful democratization stories in Africa (before the coup of 2012);Malian migrants are actively involved in the economic development of their country:They send remittances to their families at home;they gather in hometown associations which contribute to financing public goods in their villages of origin. Yao Pan & Carlo SantagiustinaCase study: Why Mali? 2/203/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?8Polity IV index in Mali, Africa and West Africa (19602010):

Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina

Polity IV is an index of democracy provided by INSCR of the Center for Systemic Peace. It assigns each country an annual score in the autocracy-democracy spectrum, ranging from 10 (autocracy) to 10 (full democracy).

Data and identification strategies03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?9Data: Census data collected in 1998/1999 and 2009, by the Institut National de la Statistique Malien (INSTAT).Provides information regarding education, ethnic characteristics, and infrastructures;Identification strategies: Implement an instrumentation procedure to take into account the potential endogeneity in the relationship between return migration and voting behavior. Run fixed-effect estimations over a two-period panel to control for the time invariant unobservable variables that may be correlated both with electoral outcomes and return migration intensity.Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustinaregression model (general)

>Dep. variables: participation rate; competiveness of the election (fragmentation of the votes, winning margins > Indep. Variables: return migration>Control variables: emigrants, population, literacy, wealth, ethnic groups, lists, rain shocks

Model spec. and regr. on cross sect.03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?10Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina

>Instruments:past return migrants in 1998, distance variables( the distance to the traditional migratory route, the distance to the closet checkpoint, the distance to the Senegal River)

>Panel Construction:Endegenoty concerns03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?11Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina

Results (partial)03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?12

The positive and significant impact of returnees from non-African countries on turnout03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?13Yao Pan & Carlo Santagiustina.

Results (partial)03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?14

An impact of returnees from non-African countries on electoral competitiveness, but less robust, and depends on the variables chosen to measure electoral competitiveness03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?15

Simulation: a diffusion of political norms from returnees to non-migrants

Interaction between the share of returnees and the share of educated non-migrants in the locality: consistent with the transfer of norm hypothesis; an impact of returnees from non-African countries on electoral outcomes which is stronger when non-migrated are less educated and less informedOther Results03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?16Conclusion03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?17Yao Pan & Carlo SantagiustinaCorrelation between return migration and electoral outcomes does not only capture returnees specific electoral behavior, but reflects a diffusion of political norms from returnees to non-migrants;Migrants who have experienced different economic and political environments while living abroad bring different political norms back home and are likely to influence non-migrants electoral behavior;Evidence of positive influence of returnees from non-African countries on electoral participation and electoral competitiveness;Impact of returnees (both on turnout and on electoral competitiveness) is stronger in poorly educated localities, suggesting that the presence of return migrants may substitute for the education of non-migrants.

Thank you very much!!03/06/2015Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country?18