Brain Gain in Late Colonial Indonesia: New Evidence on Chinese Migration and Wages
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Mark Hup, Chinese University of Hong Kong; Pim de Zwart, Wageningen University
Version: View help for Version V1
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Project Citation:
Project Description
Abstract: During the "Age of Mass Migration", many Chinese migrants came to colonial Indonesia. We find that these migratory flows included many skilled workers, contrary to the belief that they mostly consisted of unskilled labourers. We construct a new dataset of migration and potential surplus earnings for different types of work for the period ca. 1900-1920. Our analyses show that high earnings for skilled work, but not for unskilled work, strongly incentivized migration. Given the scarcity of skilled labour in Indonesia, the skilled migrants may have significantly contributed to economic growth in general and the growing trade-based sectors in particular.
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