Spatial Dependence in the Relationship between Climate Change and Internal Migration: Evidence from the United States

Abstract

Understanding and accurately estimating the effects of climate change on migration patterns may be an important concern for future climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts. In this context, issues of spatial dependence are likely relevant but have largely been neglected by previous literature. Drawing on empirical methods developed in the spatial econometrics literature, the current paper attempts to shed some light on the role of spatial dependence in the climate-migration relationship using data for the United States for the years 2005 to 2019. I find modest evidence of spatial spillover effects of temperature and precipitation on state-level migration rates. In particular, I show that not accounting for potential spatial spillover effects leads to an overestimation of the effects of precipitation on migration rates.