Climate change, migration, and irrigation

Théo Benonnier, Katrin Millock () and Vis Taraz
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Théo Benonnier: ENS Cachan - École normale supérieure - Cachan
Katrin Millock: PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement

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Abstract: Climate change will affect both international and internal migration. Earlier work finds evidence of a climate-migration poverty trap: higher temperatures reduce agri- cultural yields, which in turn reduce emigration rates in low-income countries, due to liquidity constraints. We test whether access to irrigation modulates the climate- migration poverty trap, since irrigation protects crops from heat. We regress measures of international and internal migration on decadal averages of temperature and rain- fall, interacted with country-level data on irrigation and income. We find that irri- gation access significantly weakens the climate-migration poverty trap, demonstrating the importance of considering alternative adaptation strategies when analyzing climate migration.

Keywords: International migration; Rural-urban migration; Climate change; Agriculture; Irrigation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-04
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Working Paper: Climate change, migration, and irrigation (2019)
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