Return migration and violence

• Published in: World development 2019-04, Vol.116, p.113-124
• Main Authors: Bucheli, José R., Fontenla, Matías, Waddell, Benjamin James
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aggression; Bivariate analysis; Crime; Crime prevention; Developing countries; Economic development; Economic growth; Economic models; Homicide; Homicide rates; Latin America; LDCs; Local government; Mexico; Migrants; Migration; Municipalities; Murders & murder attempts; Prone; Renewal; Return migration; Violence
• ISSN: 0305-750X; 1873-5991
• DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.12.010

•Return migration in Mexico has a strong and robust negative effect on homicide rates.•The strongest effect is found in municipalities with the lowest levels of violence.•Our results suggest that the impact of return migration is mostly associated with attributes that migrants have attained while living abroad.•Our findings are complementary to research that finds an inverse relationship between immigration and violence in the United States. There is reason to suspect that return migrants can reduce social violence in migrant-prone regions of the world. Taking into account that recent research shows positive effects of return migration, we consider that returners may reduce violence by contributing to social renewal and economic growth in their home communities. We estimate the direct effects of return migration in the context of Mexico, a traditionally migrant country that has suffered record levels of violence in the past decade. Using data on homicide rates from 2456 municipalities for the 2011–2013 period and an instrumental variable bivariate Tobit maximum likelihood approach, we find that higher rates of return migration lead to a decline in local homicide rates. We also show, with a censored quantile instrumental variable (CQIV) model, that municipalities in the bottom quartile of the homicide rate distribution benefit the most from return migration. Our work has important implications for crime reduction policies in developing countries, and specifically in Mexico, where social violence has wreaked havoc on society in recent years.