CLIMATE-INDUCED MIGRATION IN BANGLADESH
This is an inter-disciplinary project, joint with researchers in earth sciences, sociology, geography, and hydrology which allows us to link high-resolution, high-frequency, and fine-scale environmental data (remote sensing and in situ) with socio-economic data on migration and adaptation. An innovation of this project is the collection of high-frequency data on migration via mobile phones. This will allow us to identify even the most vulnerable migrants, particularly those who may migrate over short distances for short periods of time and perhaps lack the resources to move permanently to a more environmentally and climatically stable location. Our research shows that environmental factors have a significant effect on migration, though the magnitude is relatively modest, in part because many in the vulnerable population lack the necessary resources to move. Findings published in Nature Climate Change, reveal that, though flooding per se has only modest effects on migration, saltwater flooding has large effects via saline contamination of soils, which worsens economic precarity and causes migration to spill over across national borders. Sea level rise is projected to have additional impacts on migration that leave behind large disadvantaged and trapped populations. Support from the Belmont Forum and the Institute for Population Research and the Sustainability Institute at The Ohio State University is gratefully acknowledged.
Bangladesh Delta: Assessment of the Causes of Sea-Level Rise Hazards and Integrated Development of Predictive Modeling Towards Mitigation and Adaptation (BanD-AID)
Bay of Hope: A team of inter-disciplinary scientists and engineers working hand in hand with stake-holders, to achieve large-scale impact on a region.
ECONOMIC JUSTICE
This project examines the factors contributing to persistent demographic (gender, race/ethnicity) differences in economic outcomes such as education, performance evaluation, promotion, and earnings. One line of research demonstrates that parental preferences play a significant role, particularly when there are socio-cultural factors influencing decisions about children's human captial investments. This further suggests that the impact of skill-based immigration restrictions on future generations will be dependent not only on the skill-composition of current immigrations but also on patterns of selection with respect to preferences for human capital investment. A second line of research looks at quantifying these biases, specifically at The Ohio State University, with respect to both base salary and student evaluations of instruction, as well as the institutional factors contributing to these disparities.
COOPERATION AND EFFICIENCY WITHIN HOUSEHOLDS
This research program examines the motives and potential for cooperative behavior, focusing on the roles of information,incentives and social norms. I find evidence of significant information asymmetries between spouses, resulting in varying degrees of inefficiency in the intra-household allocation of resources. In Ghana, where spouses independently manage separate agricultural plots, husbands and wives exhibit large discrepancies with respect to their spouses' earnings, expenditure, and Engel curves. Moreover, these discrepancies significantly reduce household profit, with the average effect being roughly equivalent to 15% of the variation between households. In China, split-household migration exacerbates information problems but effects only allocations that are difficult to monitor, such as time and nutrient allocation. In contrast, observable goods such as child BMI and school enrollment remain unchanged, controlling for income. Therefore, subsidies for agricultural inputs – where the value is transparent – may have very different effects than subsidies for agricultural credit – where the value could be more easily obscured – even if the two programs have the same overall effect on household income. Finally, as suggested by the Samaritan's Dilemma, altruism is found to reduce incentives for cooperation, all else equal. This suggests that, in scenarios requiring voluntary provision of public goods, it may be optimal to maintain greater social distance between participants.
SHORT TERM MIGRATION
Data on migration largely fail to distinguish permanent (establish a new residence and household) and temporary (intend to rejoin the origin household at a later date) migrants, leading to ambiguity in how both migrants (e.g., by duration or household membership) and income (e.g., as a remittance or as earnings of a current household member) are characterized and obscuring the interaction between migrants and origin households. The primary objectives of this research program are to document the characteristics of these two disparate types of migrants and analyze the determinants of migration for each, as well as to estimate the causal effect of migration, by type on well-being and economic activity. We find that, in Pakistan, temporary migrants are intermediately selected on education, with weaker selection on cognitive ability. In contrast, permanent migration is associated with strong positive selection on both education and ability. And, despite substantial monetary gains from migration, people may be happier and less mentally distressed by remaining at home. Support from the International Growth Centre, and the Institute for Population Research and the Sustainable and Resilient Economy Program at The Ohio State University) in which we use mobile phones to collect high-frequency migration data.