Climate-Related Natural Disasters and Regional Migration in Europe : A Spatial Econometric Analysis

In recent decades, the European Union has experienced an increase in the frequency of climate-related natural disasters. While a large body of literature analyzing the impact of natural disasters on migration patterns in the U.S. and other areas has emerged, little research has been conducted for the European Union. In this paper, we attempt to close this gap in the literature and investigate the impact of climate-related disasters on NUTS-2 region-level migration for the period 2000-2019. Employing spatial econo-metric methods, we find that experiencing a severe disaster leads to an increase in net out-migration of 0.9 individuals per 1000 inhabitants, followed by an increase in net in- migration of 0.6 individuals per 1000 inhabitants two years later. When using spatial Durbin models, we observe a negative spatial spillover effect of severe disasters on net migration, suggesting that neighboring regions may also be affected by the disasters, which may induce individuals in those regions to out-migrate. For less severe disaster events, we find no conclusive evidence that disasters are driving regional migration