Yannick Dupraz (LEDa-Université Paris-Dauphine-PSL) will present his paper “A Century of Language Barriers to Migration in India,” co-authored with Latika Chaudhary (Naval Postgraduate School) and James Fenske (University of Warwick).
Abstract: Combining detailed data on language and migration across colonial Indian districts in 1901 with a gravity model, we find origin and destination districts separated by more dissimilar languages saw less migration. We control for the physical distance between origin-destination pairs, several measures of dissimilarity in geographic characteristics, as well as origin and destination fixed effects. The results are robust to a regression discontinuity design that exploits spatial boundaries across language groups. We also find linguistic differences predict lower migration in 2001. Cultural channels are a small part of the link from linguistic diversity to lower migration. Rather, the evidence suggests communication and information channels are more important.
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