Validating Migration Responses to Flooding Using Satellite and Vital Registration Data

Joyce Chen; Valerie Mueller; Yuanyuan Jia; Steven Kuo-Hsin Tseng

doi:10.1257/aer.p20171052

Validating Migration Responses to Flooding Using Satellite and Vital Registration Data

Joyce Chen¹; Valerie Mueller²; Yuanyuan Jia³; Steven Kuo-Hsin Tseng⁴

¹ The Ohio State University, 324 Agricultural Administration Building, 2120 Fyffe Road, Columbus, OH 42310 (e-mail: ) · ² International Food Policy Research Institute, 2033 K Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006 (e-mail: ) · ³ The Ohio State University, 275 Mendenhall Lab, 125 South Oval Mall, Columbus OH, 43210 (e-mail: ) · ⁴ Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central University, No.300, Jhongda Road, Jhongli City, Taoyuan, 32001, Taiwan (e-mail: )

American Economic Review 2017

Rainfall measures may be imperfect proxies for floods, given factors such as upstream water balance, proximity to rivers, and topography. We check the robustness of flooding-migration relationships by combining nationally-representative survey data with measures of flooding derived from weather stations, gridded products, and remote sensing tools. Linear probability models reveal that extreme flooding is negatively associated with out-migration. Rainfall-based proxies produce results qualitatively similar to those using the satellite-based measure of inundation, but only the latter is able to discern non-monotonic effects throughout the distribution. Moreover, estimates differ widely across areas, suggesting that households respond differently to rainfall and flooding.

DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171052
Volume: 107 (5)
Pages: 441-445
Language: en
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