American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Validating Migration Responses to Flooding Using Satellite and Vital Registration Data
American Economic Review
vol. 107,
no. 5, May 2017
(pp. 441–45)
Abstract
Rainfall measures may be imperfect proxies for floods, given factors such as upstream water balance, proximity to rivers, and topography. We check the robustness of flooding-migration relationships by combining nationally-representative survey data with measures of flooding derived from weather stations, gridded products, and remote sensing tools. Linear probability models reveal that extreme flooding is negatively associated with out-migration. Rainfall-based proxies produce results qualitatively similar to those using the satellite-based measure of inundation, but only the latter is able to discern non-monotonic effects throughout the distribution. Moreover, estimates differ widely across areas, suggesting that households respond differently to rainfall and flooding.Citation
Chen, Joyce J., Valerie Mueller, Yuanyuan Jia, and Steven Kuo-Hsin Tseng. 2017. "Validating Migration Responses to Flooding Using Satellite and Vital Registration Data." American Economic Review, 107 (5): 441–45. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171052Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D12 Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
- J11 Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
- O13 Economic Development: Agriculture; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Other Primary Products
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
- Q54 Climate; Natural Disasters and Their Management; Global Warming