Full Citation
Title: Climate Change Impacts on U.S. Migration and Household Location Choice
Citation Type: Conference Paper
Publication Year: 2012
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Abstract: This paper employs a two-stage residential sorting model2 to examine climate change impacts on residential location choices in the US. The estimated coefficients are used tosimulate population changes and US migration patterns across regions under hypothetical changes in climate. The main dataset used for estimation is the Integrated Public UseMicrodata Sample (IPUMS), which provides demographic characteristics of approximately 2.4 million households located in 283 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) of the US in the year 2000. Projected climate data (i.e. extreme temperatures) used for simulation are obtained from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). In the estimation component, a two-stage randomutility sorting model (RUM) is employed. The first-stage discrete choice model employs a multinomial logit specification to recover heterogeneous parameters associated with MSA specific variables, migration costs, along with the mean indirect utility of each MSA. In particular, the interaction terms of temperature extremes and individual-specific characteristics, such as ones birth region, age and educational attainment, are used to recover valuations of temperature extremes for different classes of people withpotentially different preferences. The second stage of this model decomposes the mean indirect utility obtained from the first stage into its MSA-specific attributes controllingfor unobservables using region fixed effects. In the simulation component, the estimated coefficients are used to simulate population changes across regions in the US underhypothetical changes in extreme temperatures. We find that extreme temperatures, extreme precipitation, and tornado occurrences reduce utility, and peoples preferencesfor temperature extremes are heterogeneous. The climate of ones place of birth and demographic characteristics such as age and educational attainment, are significantfactors that lead to preference heterogeneity. In addition, we find that population shares in the Southern region and California drop, while population share in Northeastern region increases under changes in climate.
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Authors: Fan, Qin; Fisher-Vanden, Karen; Klaiber, H.Allen
Conference Name: Association of Environmental and Resource Economics
Publisher Location: Asheville, NC
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Migration and Immigration
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