Migratory responses to agricultural risk in northern Nigeria

Andrew Dillon*, Valerie Mueller, Sheu Salau

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

124 Scopus citations

Abstract

We investigate the extent that Nigerian households engage in internal migration to ensure against ex ante and ex post agricultural risk due to weather-related variability and shocks. We use data on the migration patterns of individuals over a twenty-year period and temperature degree days to proxy agricultural risk. We find suggestive evidence of household response to ex ante risk by sending males to migrate. Robust findings show that males migrate in response to ex post risk. As global climate change increases risk, these results suggest that increased migration could result as households mitigate risk and strain limited resources in Nigerian cities.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1048-1061
Number of pages14
JournalAmerican Journal of Agricultural Economics
Volume93
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2011

Keywords

  • Nigeria
  • migration
  • risk
  • temperature degree days

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous)
  • Economics and Econometrics

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