Local Impacts of Climate Change-Induced Migration
Abstract
First Essay: We exploit temporally disaggregated data on weather anomalies and temporary migration to examine the effect of the former on the latter, and the effectiveness of migration as a coping mechanism to maintain consumption in the face of adverse weather conditions. We construct a continuous measure of migration that increases both with the number of people leaving, and with the length of time they stay away. Our results show that, while weather anomalies do trigger temporary migration, they only do so when they occur before or rather early in the growing season. This suggests that households have a limited ability to respond to unexpected shocks when they occur late in the season. We also find that weather anomalies can affect migration patterns several months after they take place and discuss possible mechanisms. We find that, conditional on these temporal patterns, households lacking on labor force endowment and social networks are particularly limited in their ability to use migration as a coping mechanism and remain, consequently, more vulnerable to shocks. Our analysis reveals how temporal aggregation of weather shocks, widely implemented in previous studies, can obscure substantial heterogeneity in migration response, as well as their ability to mitigate adverse impacts. Second Essay: The study uses the same framework as the first essay. It uses temporally disaggregated data on weather anomalies and temporary migration. However, this study expands the first essay by considering agricultural labor use. Our results show that agricultural labor hiring will not increase, although there is an increase in temporary labor migration by abnormal weather driving the previous agricultural season. This suggests that households adjust their agriculture plan with temporary labor migration consideration. When a drought happens in the current agricultural season, our result shows that irrigation has mediation effects on hired agricultural labor. Our analysis reveals how temporally disaggregated analysis yields more detailed results for market outcomes. Third Essay: Sea-level rise induced migration studies usually investigate intercounty or inter-regional migration. However, sea level rise does not affect a county uniformly. Instead, it affects only specific areas with different socio-economic status. The objective of this study is to provide information on socio-economic geography change associated with sea-level rise. We simulate the spatial redistribution of households in the United States coastal areas affected by the expected sea-level rise. Towards that end, we use a spatial microsimulation. The spatial microsimulation proceeds in two steps. In the first step, a synthetic population is generated for each spatial unit. In the second step, the synthetic population is redistributed as a response to sea-level rise. Our results show that, most of the households that migrate due to the sea-level rise, will migrate within the same or to a neighboring census tract areas.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Sesmero, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Agriculture|Climate Change|Economics|Labor relations|Sociology|Statistics
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