【Trade Seminar】Home, Sweet Home? The Spatial Consequences of Return Migration
2025/12/09
研討會日期 : 2025-12-09
時間 : 10:30
主講人 : Professor Lin Ma (馬麟)
地點 : Conference Room C103
主持人 : Professor Wen-Tai Hsu
演講者簡介 : Professor Lin Ma received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan in 2014. He is currently an Associate Professor at Singapore Management University. His research interests are International Trade, Inequality, and Economic Geography.
演講摘要 : Leveraging a novel wave of data from the China Household Finance Survey, we document that 55% of cross-prefecture migrants eventually returned to their hometowns, with family and retirement-related concerns being the predominant motivation. To analyze the economic consequences of "return migration", we build a dynamic spatial general equilibrium model that features multiple migration decisions throughout a lifecycle. The migration decisions hinge on wage differentials, the pension system, access to public goods, and attachments to one's hometown. We find that the institutional barriers that "forced" the migrants to return home slowed down the pace of urbanization, reduced aggregate output and welfare, and exacerbated spatial inequality in China. Moreover, incorporating return migration in spatial models could alter how the economy responds to economic shocks such as migration and trade liberalization, as well as the effects of place-based policies.
