Kidnaps and Migration: Evidence from Colombia

Using a unique data set from the major Colombian cities collected between 2000-2003 and with information on more than 16,000 households, this paper studies the relationship between the kidnap risk a household faces with its migration decisions. We find evidence that exposure to such risk induces households to react sending some of their members to an international destination but not necessarily to a domestic one. This finding is robust to the inclusion of several household characteristics usual in the migration literature and an alternative measure of kidnap risk. The implication of our findings suggests a possible brain drain" from Colombia."

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