Information and Immigrant Settlement

Research by: Toman Barsbai, Victoria Licuanan, Andreas Steinmayr, Erwin Tiongson, & Dean Yang

Abstract

We study a randomly-assigned program providing information on U.S. settlement for new Filipino immigrants. The intervention, a 2.5-hour pre-departure training and an accompanying paper handbook, has no effect on employment, settlement, and subjective wellbeing, but leads immigrants to acquire substantially fewer social network connections. We rationalize these findings with a simple model, showing that information and social network links are substitutes under reasonable assumptions. Consistent with the model, the treatment reduces social network links more when costs of acquiring network links are lower. Offsetting reductions in the acquisition of social network connections can hence reduce the effectiveness of information interventions.

Keywords: immigrant integration, social networks, imperfect information, multiple hypothesis testing

To cite this article:  Barsbai, T., Licuanan, V., Steinmayr, A.,Tiongson, E., & Yang, D. (2024). Information and immigrant settlement. Journal of Development Economics, 170,  103305. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2024.103305

To access this article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2024.103305

 Funding support: This research project on Filipino migrants has been funded by a grant from the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie).

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The Journal of Development Economics publishes original research papers relating to all aspects of economic development – from immediate policy concerns to structural problems of underdevelopment. The emphasis is on quantitative or analytical work, which is novel and relevant.

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