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Climate variability and international migration: an empirical analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2015

Nicola D. Coniglio  and
Giovanni Pesce
Nicola D. Coniglio
Affiliation:
University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’, Department of Economics, Largo Abbazia Santa Scolastica 53, 70100 Bari, Italy; andNHH Norwegian School of Economics. E-mail: Nicola.Coniglio@nhh.no
Giovanni Pesce
Affiliation:
University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’, Department of Economics, Bari, Italy. E-mail: Giovanni_pesce@alice.it
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Abstract

Is international migration an adaptation strategy to sudden or gradual climatic shocks? In this paper we investigate the direct and the indirect role of climatic shocks in developing countries as a determinant of out-migration flows toward rich OECD countries in the period 1990–2001. Contrarily to the bulk of existing studies, we use a macro approach and explicitly consider the heterogeneity of climatic shocks (type, size, sign of shocks and seasonal effects). Our results show that the occurrence of adverse climatic events in origin countries has significative direct and indirect effects on out-migration from poor to rich countries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 20 , Special Issue 4: Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Developing and Transition Countries , August 2015 , pp. 434 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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