For this week’s Economics Lunch Seminar, Isabelle Chort (Université Paris-Dauphine) will be presenting “Managing the Impact of Climate Change on Migration: Evidence from Mexico” (with Maëlys de la Rupelle).“. The Economics Lunch Seminar will be on Monday, March 13, in room 401, 12-1pm.
Abstract :
Climate change is expected to have a large impact on human mobility, especially in developing countries. We use a panel of state-level yearly migration flows between Mexico and the U.S. from 1999 to 2011 to investigate the impact of climatic shocks at origin on Mexican outmigration. We study the effect of hurricanes and seasonal variations in precipitations and temperatures. We separately investigate the impact of climatic variables on documented and undocumented migrant flows, and explore the mitigating impact of two public programs, one directed at agriculture (PROCAMPO) and  a disaster fund (Fonden). This study shows that seasonal variations in precipitations and temperature have different impacts on documented and undocumented migration flows. Climatic shocks affect undocumented migration mainly from the most agricultural states. In particular, lower than average rainfall during the dry season increase undocumented migration flows from Mexico to the US. While we find no effect of the PROCAMPO program on undocumented migration, Fonden amounts are found to mitigate the effect of climatic shocks by lowering the migration response to drought episodes.