Climatic factors as determinants of international migration
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Abstract We examine natural disasters and long‐run climatic factors as potential determinants of international migration, implementing a panel dataset of bilateral migration flows from 1960 to 2000. We find no direct effect of long‐run climatic factors on international migration across our entire sample. These results are robust when conditioning on origin‐country characteristics, when considering migrants returning home, and when accounting for the potential endogeneity of migrant networks. Rather, we find evidence of indirect effects of environmental factors operating through wages. We find that epidemics and miscellaneous incidents spur international migration, and there is strong evidence that natural disasters beget greater flows of migrants to urban environs.
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The interaction between environmental variables and population dynamics in the Somali context remains underexplored.
“Moreover, studies like those by Beine and Parsons (2015) and Marchiori et al. (2012) have acknowledged population growth as a key factor in migration, yet the interaction between environmental variables and population dynamics in the Somali context remains underexplored.”
From Climate change and migration dynamics in Somalia: a time series analysis of environmental displacement (2025) · cites this paper as Beine and Parsons (2015)
Section 2 treats demographic factors as migration drivers, and the results discussion near Table 2 links a younger population to a higher propensity to migrate. The paper measures age composition through the dependency ratio, however, rather than establishing population growth itself as a key factor. The Somali-specific research gap is the citing authors’ framing, not a finding attributed to this source. (LLM, conf=0.82)
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- Authors
- Beine, M., & Parsons, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Luxembourg (LU)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Beine, Michel
- Parsons, Christopher
- Venue
- The Scandinavian Journal of Economics
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-12-11
- Volume
- 117
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 723-767
- ISSN
- 0347-0520 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9442
- OpenAlex
- W2171621355
- Cited by
- 447
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 24 · 2025: 29 · 2024: 43 · 2023: 43 · 2022: 48 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 37 · 2017: 37 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 6
- FWCI
- 93.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- Scandinavian Journal of Economics (publishedVersion)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- UWA Profiles and Research Repository (UWA) (submittedVersion)
- DIAL (Catholic University of Leuven) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
- Open Repository and Bibliography (University of Luxembourg) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Funders
- UK Government Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Migration and Labor Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Keywords
- international migration, climate change, natural disasters, epidemics, bilateral migration flows, wages, migration networks, return migration, urban migration
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