This dissertation is composed of two self-contained essays, which are concerned with the effects of work-related migration in Nepal on the outcomes of households with migrants. In the first essay, I evaluate the impact of work-related migration of adult males on the educational attainment of their children. I develop a framework of household decision-making and estimate migration decision and enrollment outcomes jointly under several sets of assumptions. I use lagged level of migrant networks as instrumental variables to identify selection of the migrants within the household. I find that migration of a father increases the probability of enrollment of his children in school by 16% points on average.

In the second essay (co-authored with Michael Lokshin) we measure the impact of local and international work-related migration on poverty in Nepal. We apply an instrumental variable approach to deal with nonrandom selection of migrants and simulate various scenarios for the different levels of work-related migration, comparing observed and counterfactual household expenditure distribution. Our results indicate that one fifth of the poverty reduction in Nepal occurring between 1995 and 2004 can be attributed to higher levels of work-related migration and remittances sent home. We also show that while the increase in international work-related migration was the leading cause of this poverty reduction, domestic migration also played an important role. Our findings demonstrate that strategies for economic growth and poverty reduction in Nepal should consider aspects of the dynamics of domestic and international migration.