Gone with the Flood: Natural Disasters, Selective Migration, and Media Sentiment

Exploiting variations in flood timing from the United States as a quasi-natural experiment, this study shows that floods cause population replacement in affected regions with 1.9% inflow and 2.7% outflow migration, respectively. They trigger younger, highly educated, and employed residents out of, and attract older, less-educated, and unemployed ones into affected zones. Furthermore, the selective migration patterns are amplified by media information provision. The flood-induced selective migration has significant impacts on local economic development, causing a 5.3% decrease in housing prices but a 7.4% increase in housing rent, suggesting a structural change in the housing markets of flood-prone regions. A back-of-envelope calculation shows that flood-induced selective migration conditional on education and age profiles leads to net annual losses of $9.3 million and $4.7 million, respectively, in the flooded counties. Our results shed light on how information provision interacts with migration incentives in wake of natural disasters.