Telecom Expansion and Internal Migrants in Indian Cities

ABSTRACT This paper estimates the impact of mobile phone service expansion on migration to and between cities of India during 2001–2011. We show that the number of cross‐state migrants living in urban areas of India increased significantly due to telecommunications infrastructure growth. The increased migration reflects better labor and marriage market information transmission across regions as well as a positive labor demand shock in the service sector resulting from telecom expansion. The evidence indicates that telecommunications technologies act as forces of urban concentration, disproving the “death of distance” hypothesis. Furthermore, our findings imply that technological growth can reduce the barriers to internal migration in developing countries.