Cream Brown Bag: Marco Alfano (Lancaster)

Abstract:Allowing for in-place adaptation when analysing climate migration drastically changes policy implications. Besides sending migrants, Kenyan households react to temperature shocks by transiting to less climate-sensitive (non-agricultural) occupations and by changing livestock species. These in-place adaptations shed light on the mechanisms through which common policies weaken temperature’s effect on migration. Better infrastructure catalyses occupational transitions and reduces other adjustment margins such as migration and livestock composition. Random unconditional cash transfers attenuate temperature’s effect on migration by softening welfare losses. We rationalise household responses to weather shocks using a model of joint migration, occupation, and livestock choices by households accounting for equilibrium adjustments in local wages. We show that the three coping strategies are substitutes and that infrastructure lowers the effect of temperature shocks on migration at lower costs than several other common policies. Compared to ours, a model that considers migration as the only coping strategy under-estimates the mitigating impact of infrastructure investment on the effect of heat on migration by more than half.

Location: 321, Drayton House