The Importance of Political and Economic Institutions to the Decisions of International Migrants to Return to Their Home Countries

A wide range of push and pull factors have been shown to influence the decisions to migrate to another country, but the effect of the quality of institutions on the origin and destination countries has received less attention than it deserves. This chapter reviews the theoretical framework and the extant empirical evidence for the importance of political and economic institutions to international migration decisions. Key aspects of this body of literature are illustrated further with an analysis of the return migration decisions of Vietnamese migrants.