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Emigration Cascades

Around the world it has become quite common for people living in low income regions to leave their countries in search of better opportunities. However, those making this decision are not always well informed about their prospects in other countries. As a result, many emigrants develop a herd mentality and move accordingly. Some individuals may pick a certain location because they have connections or guaranteed opportunities there, but in many cases emigration occurs with a large group and common destination. The provided article examines this group migration trend and attempts to trace its origin to informational and behavioral cascades.

The ways individuals choose their destination in this situation very much follows the behavior adoption and cascade models presented in lecture. With limited private knowledge regarding their opportunities, individuals often look to the decisions of others to inform themselves. And once they see that the majority of their friends and neighbors are all picking the same location, they are usually swayed to follow suit. However, in order for these people to completely disregard their own decision and follow the group, this group must be sufficiently large. Even if there is a relatively large number of people emigrating to the same place, if the network benefit of moving with them does not outweigh the innate benefits of another location, it is unlikely that the individual would make such a poorly informed decision.

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/S1574-8715(2010)0000008008

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