Climate Variability and Inter-State Migration in India

Ingrid Dallmann and Katrin Millock

CESifo Economic Studies, 2017, vol. 63, issue 4, 560-594

Abstract: We match climate data to migration data from the 1991 and 2001 Indian Censuses to investigate the impact of climate variability on internal migration. The article makes four contributions to the existing literature on macro-level migration flows. First, use of census data allows us to test and compare the effect on migration of climatic factors prior to migration. Second, we introduce relevant meteorological indicators of climate variability, to measure the frequency, duration, and magnitude of drought and excess precipitation based on the Standardized Precipitation Index. Third, we estimate the total effect (direct and indirect effects) of climate variability on bilateral migration rates. Fourth, we examine three possible channels through which climate variability might induce migration: average income, agriculture, and urbanization. The estimation results show that drought frequency in the origin state increases inter-state migration in India. This effect is stronger in agricultural states, and in such states the magnitude of drought also increases inter-state migration significantly. Drought frequency has the strongest effect on rural–rural inter-state migration.

Keywords: climate variability; drought; excess precipitation; India; internal migration; PPML; SPI (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O15 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (53)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cesifo/ifx014 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:cesifo:v:63:y:2017:i:4:p:560-594.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

CESifo Economic Studies is currently edited by Panu Poutvaara

More articles in CESifo Economic Studies from CESifo Group Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().