Natural hazards and internal migration: The role of transient versus permanent shocks

Tanvir Pavel, Syed Hasan, Nafisa Halim and Pallab Mozumder
Additional contact information
Tanvir Pavel: Department of Economics, Florida International University, Miami, USA
Nafisa Halim: Department of Global Health, Boston University, Boston, USA
Pallab Mozumder: Department of Earth and Environment and Department of Economics, Florida International University, Miami, USA

No 1805, Discussion Papers from School of Economics and Finance, Massey University, New Zealand

Abstract: We analyse internal migration triggered by natural disasters in Bangladesh. We conducted a survey in nine coastal districts and two major cities in Bangladesh to investigate whether floods and cyclones, which can be considered as transient shocks, affect interregional migration differently compared to riverbank erosion that causes loss of lands and thus generates shocks that are permanent in nature. Our findings suggest that transient shocks induce households to move to nearby cities while permanent shocks push people to big cities with more opportunities. Comparing income and expenditure of migrants and non-migrant households, we find that the former group is better-off relative to their counterpart, indicating that welfare can be improved\ by facilitating migration. Rising exposure to climate change induced natural disasters around the world imply that our findings will be increasingly relevant for designing policies to address vulnerability, particularly for disaster prone countries with weak social safety nets.

Keywords: Climate change; Natural disaster; Coastal area; Permanent shock; Transient shocks; Internal migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I38 Q54 Q56 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Natural Hazards and Internal Migration: The Role of Transient versus Permanent Shocks (2018)
Working Paper: Natural hazards and internal migration: The role of transient versus permanent shocks (2018)
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