PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Barnett-Howell, Zachary AU - Foltz, Jeremy TI - Determinants of Migration: Cotton Strikes and Income Shocks in Mali AID - 10.3368/le.98.4.082120-0130R DP - 2022 Nov 01 TA - Land Economics PG - 700--714 VI - 98 IP - 4 4099 - http://le.uwpress.org/content/98/4/700.short 4100 - http://le.uwpress.org/content/98/4/700.full SO - Land Econ2022 Nov 01; 98 AB - How do transitory income shocks affect household migration decisions in low-income countries? We study how income losses from a cotton strike affecting Malian districts differentially changed agricultural household migration choices. The short duration and geographic specificity of the strike allows us to cleanly identify the long-run impact of a sudden change in household income on migration choices. We show that a drop in income precipitated by the strike reduced household migration rates by approximately 32% over a six-year period. A randomized inference placebo test corroborates the validity of our result. We demonstrate that not having cash on hand is a binding constraint to labor migration for poor populations. (JEL O15, Q15)