Air Pollution and Migration: Exploiting a Natural Experiment from the Czech Republic

Štěpán Mikula and Mariola Pytlikova

No 14863, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines the causal effects of air pollution on migration by exploiting a natural experiment in which desulfurization technologies were rapidly implemented in coal-burning power plants in the Czech Republic in the 1990s. These technologies substantially decreased air pollution levels without per se affecting economic activity. The results based on a difference-in-differences estimator imply that improvements in air quality reduced emigration from previously heavily polluted municipalities by 24%. We find that the effect of air pollution on emigration tended to be larger in municipalities with weaker social capital and fewer man-made amenities. Thus, our results imply that strengthening social capital and investing in better facilities and public services could partially mitigate depopulation responses to air pollution. Finally, we look at heterogeneous migratory responses to air pollution by education and age and find some evidence that the more educated tend to be more sensitive to air pollution in their settlement behavior.

Keywords: natural experiment; migration; air pollution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J61 O15 Q53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2021-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-res, nep-tra and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp14863.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Air Pollution and Migration: Exploiting a Natural Experiment from the Czech Republic (2021)
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:iza:izadps:dp14863

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().