Publié le 27 février 2025–Mis à jour le 27 février 2025
Webinaire Junior sur l'économie des migrations. Climate Change, Violence, and Remittance Flows in Mexico
Dana J. Smith
College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts
Résumé
This paper studies how domestic and international remittances respond to weather shocks in Mexico and whether local violence affects the use of remittances as a coping strategy. I use a novel combination of state-level, administrative, survey, and remotely sensed panel data to investigate these questions. Estimating a gravity model that accounts for network characteristics and potential spatial dependence, I find that remittances are selective, responding positively to drought but negatively to violence. The negative impact of violence is even larger in areas experiencing drought suggesting that households facing violence are especially vulnerable to weather shocks as they are less able to cope via remittances. I further unpack the costs of both drought and organized crime by studying the role of networks and spillovers from neighboring states. I find that networks play a key role in remittance patterns and the degree of drought and violence in neighboring states magnifies the main impact, motivating regional policy approaches.
