International Migration Intentions, Distance and Illegal Costs: Global Evidence from Africa-to-Europe Smuggling Routes * Guido Friebel † Miriam Manchin ‡ Mariapia Mendola § Giovanni Prarolo ¶ July 10, 2018 Abstract Irregular migrants from Africa and the Middle East flow into Europe along land and sea routes. The demise of the Gaddafi regime in 2011 marked the opening of the Central Mediter- ranean Route for irregular border–crossing between Libya and Italy. This resulted in the im- mediate extension of the regional smuggling network, which produced an asymmetric reduction in bilateral distance between country pairs across the Mediterranean. We exploit this source of spatial and time variation in irregular migration routes to estimate the elasticity of migration intentions to illegal moving costs proxied by distance. We employ a novel dataset of geolocal- ized time-varying migration routes in the region, combined with cross-country survey data on individual intentions to move from Africa/Middle East into Europe. We find a large negative effect of distance along smuggling routes on individual migration intentions. Shorter distances increase the willingness to migrate especially for youth, (medium) skilled individuals and those with a network abroad. The effect is stronger in countries not too far from Libya and with weak rule of law. JEL codes: K23, K42 Keywords: International Migration, Human Smuggling, Illegal Migration, Libyan Civil War * We thank Francesco Amodio, Thomas Bauer, Michel Beine, Michael Clemens, Paola Conconi, Francesco Fasani, Ricardo Hausmann, Jennifer Hunt, Joan Llull, Anna Maria Mayda, Luigi Minale, Hannes Muller, Gianmarco Ot- taviano, Giovanni Peri, Hillel Rapoport, Dean Yang and seminar participants at the Growth Lab–CID (Harvard Kennedy School), SITE–Stockholm School of Economics, IAE Barcelona, Montpellier Business School, University of Bologna, University of Milano Bicocca, II CEPR/EBRD Conference in London, XI Migration and Development Conference in Stanford, II Bolzano Applied Microeconomics Workshop, CReAM/RWI Workshop on the Economics of Migration, EPCS-Meeting at CEU in Budapest and the Development Economics and Policy Conference in Goettin- gen for helpful comments and suggestions. We are grateful to Jan Luksic and Giulia Vattuone for excellent research assistance and to Sara Lazzaroni for help with geocoded data. The usual disclaimer applies. † Goethe University Frankfurt, CEPR and IZA Email: gfriebel@wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de. ‡ University College of London. Email: m.manchin@ucl.ac.uk. § Universit` a di Milano–Bicocca and IZA. Email: mariapia.mendola@unimib.it. ¶ Universit` a di Bologna. Email: giovanni.prarolo@unibo.it. 1