IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9582.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cumulative Climate Shocks and Migratory Flows: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Salvatore Di Falco
  • Anna B. Kis
  • Martina Viarengo

Abstract

We re-examine the effects of negative weather anomalies during the growing season on the decision to migrate in rural households in five sub-Saharan African countries. To this end we combine a multi-country household panel dataset with high-resolution gridded precipitation data. We find that while the effect of recent adverse weather shocks is on average modest, the cumulative effect of a persistent exposure to droughts over several years leads to a significant increase in the probability to migrate. The results show that more frequent adverse shocks can have more significant and long-lasting consequences in challenging economic environments.

Suggested Citation

  • Salvatore Di Falco & Anna B. Kis & Martina Viarengo, 2022. "Cumulative Climate Shocks and Migratory Flows: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," CESifo Working Paper Series 9582, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9582
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9582.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barrios, Salvador & Bertinelli, Luisito & Strobl, Eric, 2006. "Climatic change and rural-urban migration: The case of sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 357-371, November.
    2. Cristina Cattaneo & Michel Beine & Christiane J Fröhlich & Dominic Kniveton & Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso & Marina Mastrorillo & Katrin Millock & Etienne Piguet & Benjamin Schraven, 2019. "Human Migration in the Era of Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 13(2), pages 189-206.
    3. Cai, Ruohong & Feng, Shuaizhang & Oppenheimer, Michael & Pytlikova, Mariola, 2016. "Climate variability and international migration: The importance of the agricultural linkage," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 135-151.
    4. Henderson, J. Vernon & Storeygard, Adam & Deichmann, Uwe, 2017. "Has climate change driven urbanization in Africa?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 60-82.
    5. Mueller, Valerie & Sheriff, Glenn & Dou, Xiaoya & Gray, Clark, 2020. "Temporary migration and climate variation in eastern Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    6. Andreas Backhaus & Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso & Chris Muris, 2015. "Do climate variations explain bilateral migration? A gravity model analysis," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-15, December.
    7. Cattaneo, Cristina & Peri, Giovanni, 2016. "The migration response to increasing temperatures," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 127-146.
    8. Christian L. E. Franzke, 2014. "Nonlinear climate change," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 4(6), pages 423-424, June.
    9. Sedova, Barbora & Kalkuhl, Matthias, 2020. "Who are the climate migrants and where do they go? Evidence from rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    10. Clark Gray & Erika Wise, 2016. "Country-specific effects of climate variability on human migration," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 135(3), pages 555-568, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bianca Balsimelli Ghelli & Elton Bequiraj & Marilena Giannetti, 2022. "The impact of corruption on migration flows: evidence from Sub Saharan African countries," Working Papers in Public Economics 232, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Di Falco, Salvatore & Kis, Anna B. & Viarengo, Martina, 2022. "Cumulative Climate Shocks and Migratory Flows: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," IZA Discussion Papers 15084, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Salvatore Di Falco; Anna B. Kis; Martina Viarengo, 2021. "Cumulative Climate Shocks and Migratory Flows: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," CIES Research Paper series 73-2022, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    3. Barbora Šedová & Lucia Čizmaziová & Athene Cook, 2021. "A meta-analysis of climate migration literature," CEPA Discussion Papers 29, Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
    4. Beine, Michel & Jeusette, Lionel, 2021. "A meta-analysis of the literature on climate change and migration," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 293-344, September.
    5. Marchetta, Francesca & Sahn, David E. & Tiberti, Luca & Dufour, Johany, 2021. "Heterogeneity in Migration Responses to Climate Shocks: Evidence from Madagascar," IZA Discussion Papers 14052, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Michał Burzyński & Christoph Deuster & Frédéric Docquier & Jaime de Melo, 2022. "Climate Change, Inequality, and Human Migration," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 1145-1197.
    7. Maya Moore & Dennis Wesselbaum, 2023. "Climatic factors as drivers of migration: a review," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 2955-2975, April.
    8. Théo Benonnier & Katrin Millock & Vis Taraz, 2022. "Long-term migration trends and rising temperatures: the role of irrigation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(3), pages 307-330, July.
    9. Simone Bertoli & Frédéric Docquier & Hillel Rapoport & Ilse Ruyssen, 2022. "Weather shocks and migration intentions in Western Africa: insights from a multilevel analysis [Do climate variations explain bilateral migration? A gravity model analysis]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 289-323.
    10. Helbling, Marc & Auer, Daniel & Meierrieks, Daniel & Mistry, Malcolm & Schaub, Max, 2021. "Climate change literacy and migration potential: micro-level evidence from Africa," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 169(1-2), pages 1-1.
    11. Théo Benonnier & Katrin Millock & Vis Taraz, 2019. "Climate change, migration, and irrigation," Working Papers halshs-02107098, HAL.
    12. Chiara Falco & Franco Donzelli & Alessandro Olper, 2018. "Climate Change, Agriculture and Migration: A Survey," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-21, May.
    13. Katrin Millock & Cees Withagen, 2021. "Climate and Migration," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anil Markandya & Dirk Rübbelke (ed.), CLIMATE AND DEVELOPMENT, chapter 10, pages 309-341, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Mueller, Valerie & Sheriff, Glenn & Dou, Xiaoya & Gray, Clark, 2020. "Temporary migration and climate variation in eastern Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    15. Salvatore Falco & Anna B. Kis & Martina Viarengo & Utsoree Das, 2024. "Leaving Home: Cumulative Climate Shocks and Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 87(1), pages 321-345, January.
    16. Florent MCISAAC & Daniel BASTIDAS, 2019. "Reaching Brazil's Nationally Determined Contributions: An Assessment of the Key Transitions in Final Demand and Employment," Working Paper 911644f9-625d-496f-8ecf-8, Agence française de développement.
    17. Michel Beine & Ilan Noy & Christopher Parsons, 2021. "Climate change, migration and voice," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 167(1), pages 1-27, July.
    18. Sedova, Barbora & Kalkuhl, Matthias, 2020. "Who are the climate migrants and where do they go? Evidence from rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    19. Michael Brottrager & Jesus Crespo Cuaresma & Dominic Kniveton & Saleem H. Ali, 2023. "Natural resources modulate the nexus between environmental shocks and human mobility," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-8, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    climate shocks; rural-urban migration; economic development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9582. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.