APPLIED ECONOMICS AND POLICY


Weather deviations linked to undocumented migration and return between Mexico and the


United States Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121, 46, Nov. 2024


NANCY CHAU PROFESSOR


Charles H. Dyson School


of Applied Economics and Management Cornell SC Johnson College of Business Cornell University


LINK TO PAPER LINK TO CHAU VIDEO


Co-authors • Nancy H. Chau Professor, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and


Management, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University


• Amanda Rodewald Garvin Professor and Senior Director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University


• Filiz Garip, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey • Julia Li Zhu, San Diego State University, California


Summary As the world’s climate continues to change, human populations are exposed


to increasingly severe and extreme weather conditions that can promote mi- gration. Here, we examine how extreme weather influences the likelihood of undocumented migration and return between Mexico and the United States. Te authors used data from 48,313 individuals observed between 1992 and 2018 in 84 Mexican agricultural communities.


Controlling for regional and temporal confounding factors, they related individual decisions to migrate to the United States without documents and subsequently return to Mexico with lagged weather deviations from the historical norm during the corn-growing season (May to August). Undocu- mented migration was most likely from areas experiencing extreme drought, and migrants were less likely to return to their communities of origin when extreme weather persisted. Tese findings establish the role of weather shocks in undocumented Mexican migration to, and eventual settlement in, the United States. Te findings also suggest that extreme weather conditions, which are likely to increase with climate change, promote clandestine mobil- ity across borders and, thus, expose migrants to risks associated with crossing dangerous terrain and relying upon smugglers.


CONTENTS TO MAIN


| RESEARCH WITH IMPACT: CORNELL SC JOHNSON COLLEGE OF BUSINESS • 2024 EDITION


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