The decision of whether or not to migrate has far-reaching consequences for the lives of individuals and their families. But the very nature of this choice makes identifying the impacts of migration difficult, since it is hard to measure a credible counterfactual of what the person and their...

The predictions of different classic migration theories are tested by using incentivized laboratory experiments to investigate how potential migrants decide between working in different destinations. First, the authors test theories of income maximization, migrant skill-selection, and...

We test different classic migration theories by using incentivized laboratory experiments to investigate how potential migrants decide between working in different destinations. We test theories of income maximization, skill-selection, and multi-destination choice as we vary migration costs,...

A randomized experiment among poor entrepreneurs tested the impact of exogenously inducing higher financial aspirations. In theory, raising aspirations could have positive effects by inducing higher effort, but could also reduce effort if unmet aspirations lead to frustration. Treatment resulted...