Climate Change and Migration Intentions

• In Event: Political Economy of Environmental Policy

Abstract

Past research has suggested a myriad of push and pull factors driving migration intentions. However, most existing contributions focus on a single factor at a time and cannot identify causal effects in a process where economic, political, and social considerations operate simultaneously. In particular, the study of climate change as an exogenous driver of migration is at the early stages, and part of a controversial debate with highly conflicting results. We propose to circumvent these challenges with a series of conjoint experiments fielded in India and Nigeria—two large immigrant-sending countries with significant within-country variation in their institutional settings, economic conditions, and climate risks. Our conjoint experiment exposes respondents to pairs of hypothetical countries to migrate to, and randomises country features including generosity of welfare benefits, wages, democratic rights, flexibility of immigration policy (i.e. access to settlement or family reunification), and climate conditions. By targeting respondents via social media platforms, we will be able to geo-locate respondents and identify different climate risk exposure within their countries of origin. Our paper makes two key contributions. Theoretically, we will test whether climate considerations drive migration intentions depending on how climate affects the local economies in origin countries. Empirically, our ambitious experimental design across two countries and their regions aims to reach a high level and balance of internal and external validity in a literature that tends to fall short of both.

Authors

• Patrick Bayer, University of Glasgow

• Sergi Pardos-Prado, University of Glasgow