Abstract
We rely on a unique natural experiment to study the effects of foreign media exposure on international migration flows and their consequences. Under the authoritarian rule of Enver Hoxha, Albania was an insulated country with little access to the world beyond its borders. Yet, around 10% of its urban territory received the television signal of a neighboring antenna located in Italy. The 90’s were marked in Albania by a period of massive emigration, we show that Italian TV accentuated the emigration of specific social classes: the rich and the educated. Using satellite data, we study the impact of this increased brain drain on city area growth. We estimate a considerable effect of Italian TV signal: exposed city grew on average one third less per year than their counterparts on the 1986-2002 period. These results suggest that remittances were not high enough to offset the loss of human capital for exposed area. Additionally, we show that exposure to the signal increased Italian language proficiency, revealing a mechanism through which Italian television affected emigration.