International migration opportunities as post-disaster humanitarian intervention

The frequency and intensity of natural disasters from climate events have been increasing in the last few years. While scientists are careful in causally linking these natural disasters to climate change, the record-breaking extreme climate events such as typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines speak for itself. Formerly a laggard in climate talks, adaptation has now gained footing not just in the UNFCCC but also among different countries. Decision 1/CP.16 also known as The Cancun Agreements invites all parties to the UNFCCC to enhance action on adaptation and undertake measures with regard to climate change induced displacement and migration. It is exactly this COP decision, which motivated the governments of Norway and Switzerland to establish the Nansen Initiative and craft a protection agenda for people who are at risk of disaster-induced cross-border displacement. Despite these efforts, there has yet to be a legally binding migration treaty that climate change victims can invoke. In this paper, we will look into the feasibility of immigration opportunities as humanitarian aid for victims of extreme climate events. Inspired by US and Canada immigration relief measures for typhoon Haiyan victims in the Philippines, we use a socio-political approach in constructing an immigration humanitarian model, which we would like to recommend as a potential humanitarian intervention after climate disasters. This recommendation is not only intended to address UNFCCC’s Decision 2/CP.19 (the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage) but to also provoke ambition and compassion from countries that are historically responsible for climate change

Assessing the poverty impacts of remittances with alternative counterfactual income estimates

We estimate the impacts of remittances on poverty with survey data from Tonga, a poor Pacific island country highly dependent on international migrants’ remittances. The sensitivity of poverty impacts to estimation method is tested using two methods to estimate migrants’ counterfactual incomes; bootstrap prediction with self-selection testing and propensity score matching. We find consistency between the two methods, both showing a substantial reduction in the incidence and depth of poverty with migration and remittances. With further robustness checks there is strong evidence that the poorest households benefit from migrants’ remittances, and that increased migration opportunities can contribute to poverty alleviation.

Migration and Informal Insurance

Do new migration opportunities for rural households change the nature and extent of informal risk sharing? We experimentally document that randomly offering poor rural households subsidies to migrate leads to a 40% improvement in risk sharing in their villages. Our model of endogenous migration and risk sharing shows that risky and temporary migration opportunities can induce an improvement in risk sharing enabling profitable migration. Accounting for improved risk sharing, the migration experiment increased welfare by 12.9%. However, permanent declines in migration costs improve outside options for households and can lead to reductions in risk sharing. The short-run experimental results for migration subsidies can differ from the longer-run impacts of a policy that permanently subsidizes migration

Migration and Informal Insurance

Do new migration opportunities for rural households change the nature and extent of informal risk sharing? We experimentally document that randomly offering poor rural households subsidies to migrate leads to a 40% improvement in risk sharing in their villages. We explain this finding using a model of endogenous migration and risk sharing. When migration is risky, the network can facilitate migration by insuring that risk, which in turn crowds-in risk sharing when new migration opportunities arise. We estimate the model and find that welfare gains from migration subsidies are 42% larger, compared with the welfare gains without spillovers, once we account for the changes in risk sharing. Our analysis illustrates that (a) ignoring the spillover effects on the network gives an incomplete picture of the welfare effects of migration, and (b) informal risk sharing may be an essential determinant of the takeup of new income-generating technologies

The interrelationship of fertility, family maintenance and Mexico-U.S. Migration

This study examines the interrelationship between migration and marital fertility, using a bi-national sample of retrospective life histories collected in Mexican origin communities and U.S. destination areas. We treat couples as the unit of analysis and use discrete-time hazard models to examine: (1) how the timing and parity of births influence the occurrence of migration (to the U.S. or return to Mexico) and the type of migration (solo or couple), and (2) how current migration status and cumulative migration experience influence the likelihood of a birth. Examining the effects of fertility on migration, and the effects of migration on the timing of births, we are able to address how couples integrate migration opportunities and fertility goals into family building strategies in a context where international circular migration is pervasive.fertility, life course, Mexico, migration

How building up the human capital of the world's poor can help lessen the climate crisis

The accumulation of skills can be a driver of adaptation to climate change. Human capital facilitates occupational change and increases migration opportunities. Tim Dobermann studied how historical investments in education facilitated adaptation in India. He finds that areas that benefited from expansion in schooling saw labour leave agriculture in response to climate change

Rural-Urban Migration and The Re-organization of Agriculture

This paper studies the response of agricultural production to rural labor loss during the process of urbanization. Using household microdata from India and exogenous variation in migration induced by urban income shocks interacted with distance to cities, we document sharp declines in crop production among migrant-sending households residing near cities. Households with migration opportunities do not substitute agricultural labour with capital, nor do they adopt new agricultural machinery. Instead, they divest from agriculture altogether and cultivate less land. We use a two-sector general equilibrium model with crop and land markets to trace the ensuing spatial reorganization of agriculture. Other non-migrant village residents expand farming (land market channel) and farmers in more remote villages with fewer migration opportunities adopt yield-enhancing technologies and produce more crops (crop market channel). Counterfactual simulations show that over half of the aggregate food production losses driven by urbanization is mitigated by these spillovers. This leads to a spatial reorganization in which food production moves away from urban areas and towards remote areas with low emigration