IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/5907.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Migration, remittances and forests : disentangling the impact of population and economic growth on forests

Author

Listed:
  • Tiwari, Sailesh
  • Bhattarai, Keshav

Abstract

International migration has increased rapidly in recent decades and this has been accompanied by a remarkable increase in transfers made by migrants to their home countries. This paper investigates the effect of the rural economic growth brought about by migration and remittances on Nepal's Himalayan forests. The authors assemble a unique village-panel dataset combining remote sensing data on land use and forest cover change with data from the census and multiple rounds of living standards surveys to test various inter-relationships between population, economic growth and forests. The results suggest that rural economic growth spurred by remittances has had an overall positive impact on forests. The paper also finds that remittances caused an increase in rural wages and an increase in income, but a decrease in land prices. Considered together, however, the relationship between forests and remittances is driven largely through the income channel, indicating that the demand for amenities provided by forests in the rural Nepali setting may have been more important than factor prices in influencing land use changes for the period of the study.

Suggested Citation

  • Tiwari, Sailesh & Bhattarai, Keshav, 2011. "Migration, remittances and forests : disentangling the impact of population and economic growth on forests," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5907, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5907
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2011/12/12/000158349_20111212125003/Rendered/PDF/WPS5907.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Taylor, J Edward & Rozelle, Scott & de Brauw, Alan, 2003. "Migration and Incomes in Source Communities: A New Economics of Migration Perspective from China," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(1), pages 75-101, October.
    2. Michael Lokshin & Elena Glinskaya, 2009. "The Effect of Male Migration on Employment Patterns of Women in Nepal," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 23(3), pages 481-507, November.
    3. Dean Yang, 2008. "International Migration, Remittances and Household Investment: Evidence from Philippine Migrants’ Exchange Rate Shocks," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(528), pages 591-630, April.
    4. Barry Chiswick & Timothy J. Hatton, 2003. "International Migration and the Integration of Labor Markets," NBER Chapters, in: Globalization in Historical Perspective, pages 65-120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    6. Edmonds, Eric V., 2002. "Government-initiated community resource management and local resource extraction from Nepal's forests," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 89-115, June.
    7. Jean-Marie Baland & Pranab Bardhan & Sanghamitra Das & Dilip Mookherjee & Rinki Sarkar, 2010. "The Environmental Impact of Poverty: Evidence from Firewood Collection in Rural Nepal," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(1), pages 23-61, October.
    8. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Susan Pozo, 2006. "Migration, Remittances, and Male and Female Employment Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 222-226, May.
    9. Quy-Toan Do & Lakshmi Iyer, 2010. "Geography, poverty and conflict in Nepal," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 47(6), pages 735-748, November.
    10. David McKenzie & John Gibson & Steven Stillman, 2010. "How Important Is Selection? Experimental vs. Non-Experimental Measures of the Income Gains from Migration," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(4), pages 913-945, June.
    11. George J. Borjas, 1994. "The Economics of Immigration," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 32(4), pages 1667-1717, December.
    12. Alejandra Cox Edwards & Manuelita Ureta, 2003. "International Migration, Remittances, and Schooling: Evidence from El Salvador," NBER Working Papers 9766, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Mckenzie, David & Rapoport, Hillel, 2007. "Network effects and the dynamics of migration and inequality: Theory and evidence from Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-24, September.
    14. HwaJung Choi, 2007. "Are Remittances Insurance? Evidence from Rainfall Shocks in the Philippines," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(2), pages 219-248, May.
    15. Michael Lokshin & Mikhail Bontch‐Osmolovski & Elena Glinskaya, 2010. "Work‐Related Migration and Poverty Reduction in Nepal," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 323-332, May.
    16. McKenzie, David & Gibson, John & Stillman, Steven, 2006. "How important is selection ? Experimental versus non-experimental measures of the income gains from migration," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3906, The World Bank.
    17. Woodruff, Christopher & Zenteno, Rene, 2007. "Migration networks and microenterprises in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 509-528, March.
    18. Kaivan Munshi, 2003. "Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 549-599.
    19. Edwards, Alejandra Cox & Ureta, Manuelita, 2003. "International migration, remittances, and schooling: evidence from El Salvador," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 429-461, December.
    20. Foster, Andrew D. & Rosenzweig, Mark R., 2004. "Technological change and the distribution of schooling: evidence from green-revolution India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 87-111, June.
    21. Andrew D. Foster & Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2003. "Economic Growth and the Rise of Forests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 601-637.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ashraf, Jawaid & Pandey, Rajiv & de Jong, Wil, 2017. "Assessment of bio-physical, social and economic drivers for forest transition in Asia-Pacific region," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 35-44.
    2. Ian G. Baird & Jefferson Fox, 2015. "How Land Concessions Affect Places Elsewhere: Telecoupling, Political Ecology, and Large-Scale Plantations in Southern Laos and Northeastern Cambodia," Land, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-18, May.
    3. Laudari, Hari Krishna & Sapkota, Lok Mani & Maraseni, Tek & Subedi, Poorneswor & Pariyar, Shiva & Kaini, Tika Raj & Lopchan, Shyam Babu & Weston, Christopher & Volkova, Luba, 2024. "Community forestry in a changing context: A perspective from Nepal’s mid-hill," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mishra, Khushbu & Kondratjeva, Olga & Shively, Gerald E., 2022. "Do remittances reshape household expenditures? Evidence from Nepal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    2. Davis, Jason & Brazil, Noli, 2016. "Disentangling fathers’ absences from household remittances in international migration: The case of educational attainment in Guatemala," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-11.
    3. Yang, Dean, 2009. "International Migration and Human Development," MPRA Paper 19212, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Calogero Carletto & Jennica Larrison & Çaglar Özden, 2014. "Informing migration policies: a data primer," Chapters, in: Robert E.B. Lucas (ed.), International Handbook on Migration and Economic Development, chapter 2, pages 9-41, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Gröger, André, 2021. "Easy come, easy go? Economic shocks, labor migration and the family left behind," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    6. Cynthia Kinnan & Shing-Yi Wang & Yongxiang Wang, 2015. "Relaxing Migration Constraints for Rural Households," NBER Working Papers 21314, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Grabrucker, Katharina, 2021. "Effects of internal rural-urban migration on rural non-farm enterprises: Evidence from Thailand and Vietnam," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-85-21, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    8. Alan de Brauw & John Giles, 2018. "Migrant Labor Markets and the Welfare of Rural Households in the Developing World: Evidence from China," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(1), pages 1-18.
    9. Adams Jr., Richard H. & Cuecuecha, Alfredo, 2010. "Remittances, Household Expenditure and Investment in Guatemala," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(11), pages 1626-1641, November.
    10. Abramitzky, Ran & Boustan, Leah Platt & Eriksson, Katherine, 2013. "Have the poor always been less likely to migrate? Evidence from inheritance practices during the age of mass migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 2-14.
    11. Valerie Mueller & Abusaleh Shariff, 2011. "Preliminary Evidence On Internal Migration, Remittances, And Teen Schooling In India," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 29(2), pages 207-217, April.
    12. Sylvie Démurger & Shi Li, 2013. "Migration, Remittances, and Rural Employment Patterns: Evidence from China," Research in Labor Economics, in: Labor Market Issues in China, pages 31-63, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    13. Anzoategui, Diego & Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli & Martínez Pería, María Soledad, 2014. "Remittances and Financial Inclusion: Evidence from El Salvador," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 338-349.
    14. Alcaraz, Carlo & Chiquiar, Daniel & Salcedo, Alejandrina, 2012. "Remittances, schooling, and child labor in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 156-165.
    15. Theoharides, Caroline, 2020. "The unintended consequences of migration policy on origin-country labor market decisions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    16. Teresa Randazzo & Filippo Pavanello & Enrica De Cian, 2021. "Adaptation to climate change: air-conditioning and the role of remittances," Working Papers 2021:, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    17. John Gibson & David McKenzie & Steven Stillman, 2011. "The Impacts of International Migration on Remaining Household Members: Omnibus Results from a Migration Lottery Program," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1297-1318, November.
    18. repec:hal:wpaper:halshs-00744438 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Randazzo, Teresa & Pavanello, Filippo & De Cian, Enrica, 2023. "Adaptation to climate change: Air-conditioning and the role of remittances," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    20. Görlich, Dennis & Omar Mahmoud, Toman & Trebesch, Christoph, 2007. "Explaining labour market inactivity in migrant-sending families: Housework, hammock, or higher education?," Kiel Working Papers 1391, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    21. Chuhong Wang & Xingfei Liu & Zizhong Yan, 2021. "Temporary versus permanent migration: The impact on expenditure patterns of households left behind," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 873-911, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Population Policies; Environmental Economics&Policies; Forestry; Climate Change and Environment; Wildlife Resources;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5907. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.