Are human rights and economic well-being substitutes? The evidence from migration patterns across the Indian states

•Migration as proxy for revealed preferences for human rights and economic well-being.•Economic well-being can be a substitute for bad protection of human rights.•The effect is driven by states with high TV penetration.•The effect is not driven by particular ethnic or religious groups.•There is a strong framing effect in interpretation of human rights complaints.

The objective of this paper is to study the relationship between the demand for human rights and the demand for economic prosperity from the “exit” perspective, looking at migration patterns. We investigate intra-national migration in India, which is a federation of various states that feature significant economic and political differences. The paper finds that the quality of human rights protection and the economic well-being in the target state are substitutes with respect to determining patterns of migration. These results depend on framing effects; human rights complaints appear to be interpreted differently by migrants, depending on the trust in the government in the target state.