A Field Study of Chinese Migrant Workers' Attitudes Toward Risks, Strategic Uncertainty, and Competitiveness

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Using a field experiment in China, we study whether migration status is correlated with attitudes toward risk, ambiguity, and competitiveness. Our subjects include migrants and non-migrants. We find that, migrants exhibit no differences from non-migrants in risk and ambiguity preferences elicited using pairs of lotteries; however, migrants are significantly more likely to enter competition in the presence of strategic uncertainty when they expect competitive entries from others. Our results suggest that migration may be driven more by a stronger belief in one's ability to succeed in an uncertain and competitive environment than by risk attitudes under state uncertainty.JEL Classification: C93, D03, D63, J61

Risk attitudes and migration

“…This is in line with Hao et al (2014) and the literature cited in Williams and Baláž (2014), but contrasts with Jaeger et al (2010), in which gender had no statistically significant effect on migration. This difference is not easily explained, though it may reflect the different nature of migration captured in this study (temporary migration, predominantly carried out by males) and in theirs (permanent migration, mostly for work or family reasons).…”

“…Notwithstanding the literature viewing migration as a risky decision, empirical evidence of the relationship between the migration decision and migrating individual's risk tolerance isscarce, especially in the case of economies in transition (Heitmuller, 2005;Conroy, 2009: Gibson andMcKenzie, 2009;Hao et al, 2014). Jaeger et al (2010) find that risk tolerance and migration in Germany are positively related.…”

“…We extend the migration and risk tolerance analysis to the most important economy in transition, China, using survey data (Hao et al, 2014, use experimental data) 1 . In particular we study the effect of risk tolerance and other determinants on the probability to migrate paying particular attention to the direction of causality.…”

“…Evidence from countries undergoing rapid economic and social transformations is minimal (Gibson and McKenzie, 2009;Hao et al, 2014;Dohmen et al, 2015). Yet it is precisely from economies in transitions that new insights on the link between risk and migration can emerge, as in such places people experience at once a wider set of choices about where to work and live and profound changes in the risk environment in which they take decisions.…”

The Long-Term Impact of International Migration on Economic Decision-Making: Evidence from a Migration Lottery and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments

“…Three recent papers have also examined the association between risk-seeking and internal migration within China. Akgüҫ et al, (2015) and Dustmann 9 et al, (2015) use the same self-reported survey measure on propensity to take risks and find migrants are more risk-seeking, while Hao et al (2014) use incentivized lotteries and find no difference in risk attitudes between migrants and stayers.…”