RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Determinants of Migration: Cotton Strikes and Income Shocks in Mali
JF Land Economics
JO Land Econ
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 700
OP 714
DO 10.3368/le.98.4.082120-0130R
VO 98
IS 4
A1 Barnett-Howell, Zachary
A1 Foltz, Jeremy
YR 2022
UL http://le.uwpress.org/content/98/4/700.abstract
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.