Research
Research
Migration as Climate Adaptation: Evidence from California Wildfires
Natural disasters are expected to impact a large and increasing number of people with climate change. Adaptive migration – movement from risky to safe areas – is theorized to be a key strategy for minimizing the costs of natural disasters. This paper investigates how people migrate in response to wildfires in California, where fires have become more frequent and severe. I provide novel empirical estimates of the extent of adaptive migration, highlight financial constraints as a barrier, and identify the causal impact of receipt of government disaster aid on migration. Using detailed individual-level geographic data, I estimate the effect of wildfires on migration using a difference-in-differences (DID) event study design by comparing the migration behavior before and after a fire of individuals in blocks that are burned for the first time with that of those in never-burned blocks within a census tract. I find that an individual experiencing a first fire has a 6.5-percentage-point (p.p.) higher probability of out-migration after four years, an 18.5% increase. There is minimal adaptive migration: Those who experience a fire are not more likely to be in wildfire-safe areas. However, individuals less likely to be financially constrained after the fire (i.e. those with high credits scores) are more likely to adaptively migrate after four years. Leveraging a new instrument for aid receipt – taking advantage of the fact that politically competitive counties are more likely to receive aid – I find that government aid is associated with higher migration, albeit not to wildfire-safe areas. Overall, migration is occurring, but adaptive responses are small. Moreover, government aid could be redesigned to improve the level of migration out of risky areas.
Burning Inequities: Wildfires, Social Safety Net, and Exacerbating Inequality
Post-Fire Housing Market: Evidence from Listings Data (with Eunkee Kwon and Clemens Pilgram)
Climate Refugees and Housing Prices: Migration-Induced Demand Shocks (with Siddhartha Biswas, Keyoung Lee, and David Zink)
The Impact of Parenthood on the Financial Well-Being of Families (with Lei Ma and Letian Yin) - Current Status: Linking Birth Records with Consumer Credit Panel