The Migration Response to Increasing Temperatures / Cristina Cattaneo, Giovanni Peri.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cattaneo, Cristina.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Peri, Giovanni.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w21622.

NBER working paper series no. w21622

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2015.

Summary:

Climate change, especially the warming trend experienced by several countries, could affect agricultural productivity. As a consequence the income of rural populations will change, and with them the incentives for people to remain in rural areas. Using data from 116 countries between 1960 and 2000, we analyze the effect of differential warming trends across countries on the probability of either migrating out of the country or from rural to urban areas. We find that higher temperatures increased emigration rates to urban areas and to other countries in middle income economies. In poor countries, higher temperatures reduced the probability of emigration to cities or to other countries, consistently with the presence of severe liquidity constraints. In middle-income countries, migration represents an important margin of adjustment to global warming, potentially contributing to structural change and even increasing income per worker. Such a mechanism, however, does not seem to work in poor economies.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2015.