Economics & Business Faculty Work
Title
The Effect of Rainfall on Migration from Mexico to the United States
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Winter 2016
Publication Title
International Migration Review
Volume Number
50
Issue Number
4
DOI
10.1111/imre.12116
Abstract
There has been very little work on the impact of rainfall on migration from Mexico or even elsewhere. We use satellite data from NASA to examine the effect of the lagged level of rainfall relative to an area's historical average, on migration from small Mexican communities to the United States. Controlling for the level of education, proportion married, and historic migration levels, we find higher levels of rainfall significantly reduce Mexican migration to the United States and a 20 percentage point higher‐than‐normal level of rainfall leads to a predicted 10.3 percent decrease in migration.
ISSN
0197-9183
First Page
890
Last Page
909
Recommended Citation
Gitter, Robert J.; Puente, Geronimo; and Perez, Francisco, "The Effect of Rainfall on Migration from Mexico to the United States" (2016). Economics & Business Faculty Work. 6.
https://digitalcommons.owu.edu/econ_pubs/6
Link Out URL
https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12116