migrants are almost never allowed to take their families with them. This generates additional costs and further incentives to return. Low-skilled migration from many other major migrant sending countries globally, such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, the Philippines or Egypt, shares similar features.<sup>5</sup>

# **2.2 Data**

Our main data source is a new and unique nationally representative survey, called the Bangladesh Return Migrant Survey (BRMS). The survey was specifically developed to analyze the relationship between workers’ situation before, during and after their migration episodes. A special module focused on economic activities of the migrants after their return, including entrepreneurship. BRMS was conducted by the World Bank in 2019 and consists of a sample of 5,000 temporary migrants who had returned to Bangladesh at the time of the survey.<sup>6</sup> The BRMS collected unique information on full employment histories, migration expenditures, demographic characteristics of migrants, sources of financing, and economic activities after returning to Bangladesh. It is one of the largest datasets on temporary migration conducted to date and, to the best of our knowledge, it is the first of its kind in a country from where migration is almost exclusively based on temporary contracts. BRMS is also the first comprehensive survey on temporary migrants who have returned to Bangladesh. The survey was designed for an analysis of the economic activity of recently returned, temporary migrants in rural and semi-urban areas of Bangladesh. It covers all districts in the country.<sup>7</sup> The data set has several features that enable us to study the role of temporary migration in overcoming the institutional voids in underdeveloped capital markets. The survey includes detailed retrospective questions on the entire employment histories of migrants, both in Bangladesh (before and after the migration) and while they were abroad. It thus allows us to construct full employment and migration trajectories, including the destination country, dates and duration of stay, and labor market outcomes (such as wages and occupation). The survey records different cost categories of each migration episode and detailed information on the financing sources. For temporary migrants who became entrepreneurs after return, the survey includes questions on the specific activity as well as the source of financing.

> 5In addition to the high levels of international migration from Bangladesh, internal rural-urban migration is also widespread. Although transportation costs have been shown to be important (Bryan et al. 2014), the financial constraints for overseas migrants are considerably tighter, and complemented by strictly enforced legal restrictions.

> 6Eligibility for the BRMS was restricted to migrants who had returned since 2010. This restriction was put in place to reduce possible issues that might arise regarding the accuracy of migrants’ recollection of past migration experiences, and, at the same time, to allow for some variability in the timing of return of the migrants.

> 7Bangladesh consists of eight divisions which are divided into 64 administrative districts.

7