Temperature shocks, rice production, and migration in Vietnamese households

This paper analyses the relationship between temperature shocks and migration in rural households in Viet Nam. To control for the potential endogeneity between crop production and migration we use monthly minimum temperatures in the growing season as an instrument of rice production. In this way, we exploit a relationship uncovered by the natural sciences. Results show that the rise in minimum temperature during the core month of the growing season (i.e. June) does cause a reduction in rice production which, in turn, has a positive impact on people’s propensity to migrate. This finding, which is robust to the use of different estimators and plausible violations of the exogeneity of the instrument, supports the ‘agricultural channel’ between climate shocks and migration by highlighting a specific feature at work in a rice-producing country.