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Potentially there are larger side effects of these migrations that might be bad, like overcrowded cities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LJX9ETKqvk&ab_channel=CentreforEffectiveAltruism

Mushfiq Mobarak discusses the difficulties of scaling up a similar intervention incentivizing Bangladeshi farmers to migrate to cities during the lean season.

Science of Scaling | Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak and Heidi McAnnally-Linz | EA Global: SF 2022

Mushfiq Mobarak and Heidi McAnnally-Linz speak to learning from cutting edge research on the science of scaling using examples from scaling interventions tar…

I think this is a significantly overvalued intervention. First, it seems likely that information is not the most significant factor regarding whether people move. Second, if people do decide to move, it seems likely that the rural community that they left would potentially suffer. This is especially true in communities where not everyone has the resources to move, meaning that this would increase the inequality within the country. Thus, many of the gains that come about from people moving could be offset by the losses of the people who stay, whether by choice or not.

@EvanLaForge I am aware of lots of different major life decisions I could take, in theory, but I think that's different to having something presented to me as a real, tangible option. Lots of people know, at some level, that they could move from the UK to America and earn higher wages, but many would need a strong sense that the pros outweigh the cons to have the conviction to make such a move, so I think more info on what steps are actually involved (along with the social support and understanding that comes with such thinking being common knowledge) would definitely help this kind of thing.

If you can initiate a trend of people migrating to a particuar city from a certain region, then that would be particularly beneficial, and I don't think that come for free when people have just basic awareness.

I think for most people who don't move from the UK to the US, the pros actually don't outweigh the cons. Higher wages are only one factor: you have to deal with immigration bureaucracy and move across an ocean from your friends and family. There's been so much immigration throughout history over a wide variety of trajectories (eg, the early 20th century waves of immigration to the US) — and that in pre-telecommunications times — that empirically information about the benefits seems to propagate really easily. If it were just a matter of trends, I doubt we would have seen such extensive and diverse immigration patterns.

I initially bet NO, but this could be straightforwardly good (in the LMICs where the cities are well-run and are proven engines of growth).

Others are doubtful that information is a barrier here, but there are a lot of people out there that won't yet have internalised the possibilities associated with taking such a life-changing move. People don't usually make drastic life decisions without some encouragement, and many won't have even started considering whether it's something that's right for them. Think of all the types of job available to you and places you could live; you can be aware of an option without having deeply considered it.

Everything in this chain seems to uncomplicatedly good and true:

• Broadcasting the benefits of moving to cities will encourage more people move to cities

• People moving to cities earn higher incomes

• People moving to and working in cities will help accelerate the economic development of that country

• The increased rate of development leads to healthier, more satisfied, better educated people.

And increasing the rate of development matters a lot! Compound growth is a big deal (and we need to factor it into our ethical decision making).

This is basically what the market description says but there's a lack of vocalised support for it. The other comments don't really cause me to doubt the key pillars of it, even if their concerns and observations are true.

I'd expect work supply & demand, the social status connected to cities and social bonds to explain like 90 % of the variance in the decision to move. If there's large work demand, firms will invest in advertising. For the other factors, it seems super hard to estimate whether people decide rationally, based on their preferences, and therefore, hard to estimate whether such initiative would be positive on net.
Other considerations: a) Because of the high status of the cities, cities seem overrated in some areas. I've heard that from a volunteer in Papua, where people flock from the jungle rural areas to the cities on big promises but unable to accustom to this world, they rely on violent gangs and often never see their families again, as their tribes are only accessible by plane.
b) Brain-drain of local leaders might amplify the cultural and economic gap between poor and rich regions, perhaps lowering the job supply in poor regions and supporting polarization

Eh, I’m also pretty down on this one. I’m definitely not an expert but based on everything I have read about internal migration in LMICs lack of knowledge about benefits and pay is not a major barrier, because if one person does it they can then tell other people. Plus I found a source (https://spinup-000d1a-wp-offload-media.s3.amazonaws.com/faculty/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2019/06/No-Lean-Season.pdf) confirming that it’s not an information barrier.

I'm sceptical that the economic differences between urban/rural populations in poor countries translate straightforwardly into welfare gains for migrants:

• It's worth looking into happiness. There appears to be evidence for greater happiness in cities within poor countries: http://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2020/WHR20_Ch4.pdf. Others have pointed to rural people's increased trust in/reliance on others as evidence for some happiness benefits of rural life, although this seems a bit convoluted: https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/PADE/article/download/77764/4564456560118/4564456640535

• But selection bias remains an issue. People who have moved to the city by choice are living out a life goal. They are more likely to have a good education, good health etc - presumably not entirely due to the better provision within cities. Imagine a poor family in a rural area: one child does well in school and gets a job in the big city. The other lives with poor health/disability, the legacy of a childhood illness. They stay in the village. You can imagine who is happier as an adult, but it isn't all to do with the fact that life is better in the city.

One more point - could this be a drop in the ocean? Mass media is more pervasive than ever and people in rural areas will be increasingly exposed to urban, westernised lifestyles, often shown in a favourable light. There was a study on telenovelas in Brazil: when new areas got access to these shows, which showed glamorous urban women with no children or very few children, the fertility rate dropped slightly. It seems plausible that extra interventions might have little to offer.

@LarsDoucet land policy/georgism seems like a potentially enabling precursor to urban migration

it'd also make sense to lend money or provide direct assistance to help with migration in some countries

~2 minutes of thinking: My sense is that even the least informed rural people are aware of the prosperity of cities, and whatever causes them to not move - legal restrictions, cultural norms or cultural clashes with urban areas - will make edutainment of that form not particularly effective

yeah at the very least it's more expensive to live in a city

GPT-4 ranked this #7 of the 10.

"While this could significantly improve incomes and health outcomes for many people, it's a complex issue with potential negative effects (e.g., urban overcrowding), and the tractability might be lower than for other interventions."