The Effects of Institutions on Migrant Wages in China and Indonesia

Abstract

According to Bell and Muhidin (2009) of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), �[i]nternal migration is the most significant process driving changes in the pattern of human settlement across much of the world, yet remarkably few attempts have been made to compare internal migration between countries�. They estimate that nearly 800 million individuals are internal migrants who live in a different region than the one in which they were born, compared with �merely� 200 million migrants who have moved countries. The World Bank Development Report 2009 calls this internal migration one of the key drivers of world economic prosperity.