Telecom Expansion and Internal Migrants in Indian Cities
研究了2001-2011年间手机服务扩张对印度城市间及向城市迁移的影响，发现电信基础设施增长显著增加了跨州移民，主要源于劳动力与婚姻市场信息传递改善及服务业劳动力需求冲击，表明电信技术促进城市集中，反驳了“距离消亡”假说。
ABSTRACT This paper estimates the impact of mobile phone service expansion on migration to and between cities of India during 2001–2011. We show that the number of cross‐state migrants living in urban areas of India increased significantly due to telecommunications infrastructure growth. The increased migration reflects better labor and marriage market information transmission across regions as well as a positive labor demand shock in the service sector resulting from telecom expansion. The evidence indicates that telecommunications technologies act as forces of urban concentration, disproving the “death of distance” hypothesis. Furthermore, our findings imply that technological growth can reduce the barriers to internal migration in developing countries.