Exit, Voice, and Climate Change: Where are all the Climate Refugees?

Starts on Jan. 23, 2019 at noon and ends on Jan. 23, 2019 at 1:15 p.m.

The event will be held at Saunders Hall 515D (the Miller Room)

UH Manoa Microeconomics Seminar

Professor Ilan Noy (Victoria University of Wellington, formerly UHM Economics) will present a paper on climate change and emigration.

Abstract: This paper contributes to the understanding of the phenomenon of trapped populations, i.e. the fact that people do not move as much as expected in the face of adverse climatic shocks in developing countries. Relying on the concept of voice and exit `a la Hirschman (1970), we show that voicing against climate change dampen their incentive to emigrate. Using original data on voicing, we find that voicing about the climatic developments in the most exposed countries is higher the lower their international emigration rate. This holds both for voicing of populations to their governments and of governments towards the rest of the world. Using visa restrictions and expected foreign income as instruments, we show that this result is robust to concerns of endogeneity of the emigration rate.

Speakers: