Essays on land expropriation and migration in East and Southeast Asia
Creators: name: Randolph, Hannah L.
Publisher: name: American University
Year: 2023

description: Urbanization and migration are widespread phenomena in developing countries. While urbanization creates gains for many, the process of urban expansion also adversely affects rural or peri-urban households that lose land or are displaced by land expropriation. Similarly, the absence of migrants creates deficits in left-behind children that are offset by remittances, but the process of decision-making about the use of remittances is not well-understood. This dissertation estimates the welfare effects of land expropriation on rural Chinese households, explores Chinese household responses to expropriation, and examines the dynamics of household decision-making over the use of remittances in Indonesia. The first essay addresses the welfare effects of land expropriation in China and household responses to being expropriated. Over the past twenty years, the Chinese government has pushed to expand cities and develop peri-urban areas. As part of this effort, the government has expropriated an average of 1,600 km$^2$ annually. The impact of this urban development strategy on the welfare of expropriated households is not well-established. I estimate the causal relationship between expropriation and livelihood choice, earned income, and other welfare outcomes, relying on panel data to observe how outcomes change in response to an expropriation event. Controlling for baseline outcomes, I find that expropriation reduces agricultural activities but does not increase other employment or income generation, thus threatening household food security. In certain cases, government compensation offsets these effects. I also find suggestive evidence that temporarily sending a migrant worker may be an effective response to expropriation, while relocation is generally not. These findings suggest concrete policies the government can undertake to lessen the negative welfare impacts of urban development on expropriated households: higher compensation, development of non-agricultural labor markets, food assistance, and loans for temporary migration. The second essay explores the process of household decision-making about remittances in the context of Indonesian sending households. The new economics of labor migration literature emphasizes strategic motives for remitting money, but little is known about how migrants influence household decision-making, or how that influence affects younger household members. Migrants may use this influence to induce greater inputs into child quality through bargaining, or affect younger members' behavior through role model or psychological health effects; this influence is expected to affect school enrollment, performance, and labor force participation of younger household members. This paper estimates the extent to which communication between migrants and households affects the probability that household members 10-22 are in the labor force. Using instrumental variable analysis of cross-sectional household survey data from Indonesia, I find evidence that greater communication between migrants and households reduces the probability that members 10-22 work by 33-35 percentage points. I also find evidence to suggest that characteristics of the household member that makes decisions about remittances play an important role. My findings are inconsistent with a bargaining framework, but may be explained by role model or psychological health effects. These results support the idea that migrant exert influence over the use of remittances, and suggest some important avenues for further research into the dynamics of sending household decision-making.