Internal Labor Migration as a Shock Coping Strategy: Evidence from a Typhoon

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Groeger, Andre; Zylberberg, Yanos
• 署名单位: Goethe University Frankfurt; University of Bristol
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20140362
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 123-153
• 关键词: natural disasters; population mobility; seasonal migration; credit market; consumption; income; RISK; insurance; remittances; responses

摘要

We analyze how internal labor migration facilitates shock coping in rural economies. Employing high-precision satellite data, we identify objective variations in the inundations generated by a catastrophic typhoon in Vietnam and match them with household panel data before and after the shock. We find that, following a massive drop in income, households cope mainly through labor migration to urban areas. Households with settled migrants ex ante receive more remittances. Nonmigrant households react by sending new members away who then remit similar amounts than established migrants. This mechanism is most effective with long-distance migration, while local networks fail to provide insurance.