WEAI/AERE 2012 - Individual Paper Abstract
Title: Extreme Weather Events and Rural-to-Urban Migration
Author(s): Trudy CAMERON,Department of Economics, University of Oregon, 435 PLC, 1285 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1285, USA, 541-346-1242, 541-346-1243, cameron@uoregon.edu; Raisa Saif, University of Oregon; Eric Duquette, U.S. Department of Agriculture [Picture credit: U.S. National Weather Service (public domain)]
Abstract: In numerous regions around the globe, climate change can be expected to change the pattern of severe weather events. The nature of future changes in these patterns can be difficult to predict, but it is instructive to consider some of the potential consequences of extreme weather on household migration decisions based on past events. Observation in some developing countries (e.g. Bangladesh) suggests that increasing rates of weather-related disasters have the effect of driving increasing numbers of rural dwellers off the land and into urbanized areas. This displacement puts considerable strain on society's resources. Unfortunately, detailed migration and weather data for countries like Bangladesh are not available. Instead, we examine county-to-county migration decisions in the U.S., treating various types of extreme weather events as random exogenous shocks to the affected communities and their economies. We are particularly interested in whether rural-to-urban migration flows are altered systematically in the wake of extreme weather events. Our data for the U.S. suggest that this is the case, especially for some types of natural disasters.
We explore a variety of specifications for a panel of over half a million annual U.S. county-to-county flows. Our models demonstrate that the effects of a number of different types of extreme weather events (i.e. flooding, heat waves, and wildfires) in the origin county on county-to-county migration flows is statistically significantly greater when the destination county is more urbanized. The effect of the number of fatalities from flooding and heat waves in the origin county on migration flows is also amplified when the destination county is more urbanized. Thus it appears that even in a developed country like the U.S. extreme weather events continue to exacerbate rural-to-urban migration flows.