The Effect of Migration on Trust in Communities of Origin

This paper investigates a largely neglected social cost of migration in communities of origin: reduced trust among the remaining population. For the purpose, I combine household-level trust data with aggregate migration rates at the municipality level in Mexico. To overcome endogeneity, variation in the revenue from the outsourcing industry Maquiladora and extreme weather conditions have been used to instrument for migration flows at the municipality level. I provide robust findings that residents in areas with high out-migration were more likely to adjust trust in their neighbors downward, pointing to a detrimental impact of migration on trust in origin areas.