Gone with the Wind: International Migration

Amelia Aburn and Dennis Wesselbaum
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Amelia Aburn: Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

No 1708, Working Papers from University of Otago, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper adds to the literature on the determinants of international migration. First, we offer a joint analysis of the driving forces of migration capturing year-to-year variations and long-run effects. Second, we analyze the dynamic response of migration to shocks to its determinants. We start by presenting a theoretical model that allows us to model migration as an augmented gravity equation. We then construct a rich panel data set with 16 destination and 198 origin countries between 1980 and 2014. Most importantly, we find that climate change is a more important driver than income and political freedom together. Our results imply that a large time dimension is key to understand the effects of climate change. We then estimate a panel vectorautoregressive model showing that the dynamic response of migration is very different across shocks to different driving forces. Our findings carry implications for national and international immigration policies.

Keywords: Climate Change; Determinants; Dynamic Effects; International Migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 O15 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2017-04, Revised 2017-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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http://www.otago.ac.nz/economics/otago642786.pdf First version, 2017 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:otg:wpaper:1708

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