Temporal Dimensions of Weather Shocks and Migration

Nathalie Williams, University of Washington

Although strong empirical evidence shows that weather shocks, such as floods and droughts, generally influence migration in many countries worldwide, the details of this relationship remain unclear and some disparate empirical results are yet unexplained. In this article, we examine temporal dimensions of the weather-migration relationship. With temporally detailed data from rural Nepal, we find migration responses for up to five years after floods, droughts, heatwaves, and cool snaps. In addition, we find differences in short- and long-term migration responses over time. These results have implications for both academic research and policy, which we discuss in our concluding section.