Climate Change Induced Inter-Province Migration in Iran

We use Iran’s national census data, covering the period 1996-2011, to empirically examine the existence and robustness of a relationship between inter-province migration and province-level climate, proxied by average levels of annual temperature and precipitation. Using a gravity equation and allowing for spatial correlation, we find that migration flows are significantly affected by both. This effect consistently persists over different specifications and implies that a rise in temperature and a drop in precipitation act as significant push factors. That (i) we focus our analyses on internal migration in a single county which excludes other major types of migration; (ii) the country has become increasingly vulnerable to climate change and has had a recent history of significant internal migration; and (iii) all the other relevant explanatory variables which are jointly included with climate variables turn out to have the expected impacts on migration flows, render our evidence robust and call for policy intervention.