Taken by Storm: Hurricanes, Migrant Networks, and US Immigration

Abstract

Do negative shocks in origin countries encourage or inhibit international migration? What roles do networks play in modifying out-migration responses? The answers to these questions are not theoretically obvious, and past empirical findings are equivocal. We examine the impact of hurricanes on a quarter century of international migration to the United States. Hurricanes increase migration to the United States, with the effect’s magnitude increasing in the size of prior migrant stocks. We provide new insights into how networks facilitate legal, permanent US immigration in response to origin country shocks, a matter of growing importance as climate change increases natural disaster impacts. (JEL F22, J15, Q54, Z13)

Partisan Residential Sorting on Climate Change Risk

“…As we noted previously though, the (de)stabilizing nature of migration could critically depend on the type of resident migration. Consistent with evidence in modern data on sorting near high-risk flood zones (Bakkensen and Ma 2020), and migration following natural disasters (Boustan et al 2012;Mahajan & Yang 2020;Spitzer et al 2020), Hornbeck (2020) shows that Dust Bowl migrants were "negatively selected" via lower education and likely lower income. 7 An important difference in our case is that migration is responding to future expectations, which means that it affects future responses to climate change.…”

Local Public Finance Dynamics and Hurricane Shocks

“…We assume that physical damage is a non-linear function of cubed maximum wind speed and no damage is caused by wind speeds below the 50 kt threshold. 13 Recent work by Hsiang and Jina (2014), Elliott et al (2015) and Mahajan and Yang (2020) have used a similar method to measure tropical cyclones' economic impacts. We prefer this continuous measure to alternative measures, such as a binary indicator for whether cities are struck by any hurricane, because the measure captures more variation in local exposure to hurricanes.…”

The migration propensity index: An application to Guatemala

“…Similarly, the potential opportunities of an individual to migrate may depend on his network outside the community and abroad (Munshi, 2003;McKenzie, 2006). 2 Recent studies further argue that migration may be an adaptation strategy to climate change (Jessoe et al, 2018) or a response strategy to natural disaster shocks where migrants' networks play an important role (Mahajan and Yang, 2020), and that higher education and credit constraints may not always drive international youth migration (Valentine et al, 2017;de Brauw, 2019).…”