News Sentiment in Destination Countries and Migration Choices: Evidence from Libya

Changes in the sentiment of migration-related news published in destination countries affect the timing of migrants’ journeys to these countries. Using geo-localized data on migrants in Libya and the complete record of news articles in their country of destination, this paper shows that a worsening news sentiment leads to migrants staying longer in Libya, slowing down their journeys to their final destinations. The paper validates these results by showing that the effect is concentrated in locations with internet connections. The results indicate that changes in news sentiment have a significant impact only for some groups of migrants and under specific conditions, suggesting a limited effect on overall migrant movements. Finally, the paper provides suggestive evidence that a worsening news sentiment in the preferred destination induces substitution across destination countries, yet it does not make migrants return to their country of origin.