Determinants of Migration: Cotton Strikes and Income Shocks in Mali

Zachary Barnett-Howell and Jeremy Foltz

Land Economics, 2022, vol. 98, issue 4, 700-714

Abstract: How do transitory income shocks affect household migration decisions in low-income countries? We study how income losses from a cotton strike affecting Malian districts differentially changed agricultural household migration choices. The short duration and geographic specificity of the strike allows us to cleanly identify the long-run impact of a sudden change in household income on migration choices. We show that a drop in income precipitated by the strike reduced household migration rates by approximately 32% over a six-year period. A randomized inference placebo test corroborates the validity of our result. We demonstrate that not having cash on hand is a binding constraint to labor migration for poor populations.

JEL-codes: O15 Q15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
Note: DOI: 10.3368/le.98.4.082120-0130R
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwp:landec:v:98:y:2022:i:4:p:700-714

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