Return migration and entrepreneurship in Morocco

Abstract EN

This paper contributes to a small but rapidly growing literature concerned with the potentially substantial implications of international migration for economic development in LDCs.

We use a sample of return Moroccan migrants in 2003-04 collected by the High Commission of Planning to explore the pattern of return migration and entrepreneurial activities of return migrants.

We examine the determinants of entrepreneurial behavior among return migrants in Morocco, controlling for the potential endogeneity of migration duration.

Our findings suggest that individual characteristics and conditions before migration matter for entrepreneurship.

We explore further the entrepreneurial behavior upon return by considering the potential endogenous impact of having invested overseas.

We find that overseas migration experience plays a significant role beyond the role played by savings and captured by migration duration.