TY  - JOUR
A1  - Friebel, Guido
A1  - Manchin, Miriam
A1  - Mendola, Mariapia
A1  - Prarolo, Giovanni
T1  - International migration and illegal costs: evidence from Africa-to-Europe smuggling routes
T2  - Journal of international economics
N2  - The 2011 Arab Spring marked the opening of the Central Mediterranean Route for irregular border crossings between Libya and Italy, which produced heterogeneous reductions of bilateral smuggling distances between country pairs in the Mediterranean region. We exploit this source of spatial and temporal variation in bilateral distance along land and sea routes to estimate the elasticity of irregular migration intentions for African and Near East countries. We estimate an elasticity of migration intentions to smuggling distances exceeding −3, mainly driven by countries with weak rule of law and high internet penetration. Our findings are consistent across irregular migration measures both at the aggregate and individual levels. We show that irregular migration elasticity is higher for youth, relatively skilled individuals and those with an informative advantage (having a social network abroad or a mobile phone).
KW  - International migration
KW  - Human smuggling
KW  - Illegal migration
KW  - Arab spring
Y1  - 2024
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/82850
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-828508
SN  - 0022-1996
VL  - 148
IS  - 103878
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -