Dust Bowl Migrants: Environmental Refugees and Economic Adaptation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050723000244
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 645-675
• 关键词: migration response; great migration; self-selection; labor-markets; IMPACT; white; 1930s; long

摘要

The 1930s American Dust Bowl created archetypal Dust Bowl migrants, refugees from environmental collapse. I examine this archetype, comparing migration from more-eroded and less-eroded counties to distinguish Dust Bowl migrants from other migrants. Dust Bowl migrants were negatively selected, in years of education, compared to other migrants who were positively selected. Dust Bowl migrants had lower incomes than natives in their destinations, which is reflected in popular impressions. I estimate strikingly modest impacts of the Dust Bowl on average wage incomes in 1939, however, which contrasts with the Dust Bowl's large and enduring impacts on agricultural land.