Migrations, risks, and uncertainty: A field experiment in China

•There is limited evidence on the wisdom that migrants tend to be more risk loving than non-migrants.•We conduct the first incentivized field experiment to study migrants vs non-migrants in China.•We find migrants are identical to non-migrants in risk preferences elicited via lottery pairs.•However, migrants are more likely to enter competition when expecting others to be competitive.•Non-migrants in areas with no out-migration more competitive than those with high out-migration.

We report data from the first incentivized artefactual field experiment conducted in China to understand whether Chinese migrants differ from non-migrants in terms of preferences regarding risk and uncertainty in various contexts. We find that, compared to non-migrants, migrants are significantly more likely to enter competitions when they expect competitive entries from others; however, migrants are not different from non-migrants in risk and ambiguity preferences where strategic uncertainty is absent. Our results suggest that migration may be driven more by a stronger belief in one's chance of succeeding in an uncertain competitive environment than by differences risk attitudes related to state uncertainty.