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Weather, agriculture and rural migration: evidence from state and district level migration in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2015

Brinda Viswanathan  and
K.S. Kavi Kumar
Brinda Viswanathan
Affiliation:
Madras School of Economics, Gandhi Mandapam Road, Chennai 600025, India. E-mail: brinda@mse.ac.in; brindav3@gmail.com
K.S. Kavi Kumar
Affiliation:
Madras School of Economics, Chennai, India. E-mail: kavi@mse.ac.in
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Abstract

This study explores three-way linkage between weather, agricultural performance and internal migration in India at the state and district level using census data. The estimations are based on a two-stage least squares model using panel data. The elasticity of the inter-state out-migration rate with respect to per capita net state domestic agricultural product is − 0.775, indicating that a decline in the value of agricultural output related to weather variations results in an increase in out-migration rate. The crop-wise analysis shows that a 1 per cent decline in rice (wheat) yield leads to a nearly 2 per cent (1 per cent) increase in the rate of out-migration from a state. The district-level analysis shows larger magnitudes of estimated change in in-migration rates to relative changes in crop yields. However, the district-level analysis using two-period panel data constructed from a single census provides relatively less robust results compared to the state-level analysis owing to the associated data limitations.

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. 469 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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