This paper uses data from the Survey of Family, Income and Employment (SoFIE) to estimate household saving in New Zealand between 2004-2006. Comprehensive data on wealth is collected biannually in SoFIE and we calculate household saving by examining how wealth has changed over time. We find that...

This paper studies how migration from a poor to a rich country affects key economic beliefs, preference parameters, and transnational household decision-making efficiency. The setting is the migration of Tongans to New Zealand through a migration lottery program. In a 10-year follow-up survey of...

The impacts of international emigration and remittances on incomes and poverty in sending areas are increasingly studied with household survey data. But comparing households with and without emigrants is complicated by a triple-selectivity problem: first, households self-select into emigration;...

The economies of the former Soviet Bloc experienced large declines in output during the decade of transition which began with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Yet there are many reasons to believe that measured output and official deflators provide a poor proxy for the change in real...

We study how migration from a poor to a rich country affects key economic beliefs, preference parameters, and transnational household decision-making efficiency. Our setting is the migration of Tongans to New Zealand through a migration lottery program. In a ten-year follow-up survey of...

How much do migrants stand to gain in income from moving across borders? Answering this question is complicated by non-random selection of migrants from the general population, which makes it hard to obtain an appropriate comparison group of non-migrants. New Zealand allows a quota of Tongans to...

People migrate to improve their well-being. Yet a large literature suggests that migration can be a stressful process, with potentially negative impacts on mental health. However, to truly understand the effect of migration one must compare the mental health of migrants to what their mental...

We use a migration lottery program to overcome the double-selectivity problems posed by migration. We compare a wide range of outcomes for the remaining household members of Tongan emigrants with those of members of similar households who were unsuccessful in the lottery, with the policy rules...

Millions of people emigrate every year in search of better economic and social opportunities. Anecdotal evidence suggests that emigrants may have over-optimistic expectations about the incomes they can earn abroad, resulting in excessive migration pressure, and in disappointment among those who...

People migrate to improve their well-being, whether through an expansion of economic and social opportunities or a reduction in persecution. Yet a large literature suggests that migration can be a stressful process, with potentially negative impacts on mental health, reducing the net benefits of...