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Abstract
Seasonal work programs are increasingly advocated by international aid agencies as a way of enabling
both developed and developing countries to benefit from migration. They are argued to provide
workers with new skills and allow them to send remittances home, without the receiving country
having to worry about long-term assimilation and the source country worrying about permanent loss of
skills. However, formal evidence as to the development impact of seasonal worker programs is nonexistent.
This paper provides the first such evaluation, studying New Zealand's new Recognized
Seasonal Employer (RSE) program which allows Pacific Island migrants to work in horticulture and
viticulture in New Zealand for up to seven months per year. We use baseline and follow-up waves of
surveys we are carrying out in Tonga to form difference-in-difference and propensity score matching
estimates of short-term impacts on household income and consumption.