Confined to stay: Migration restrictions, natural disasters, and poverty

How do restrictions to international migration affect communities’ ability to cope with natural disasters? We exploit the implementation of an emigration ban for millions of Indonesians wanting to migrate to Saudi Arabia as a natural experiment. Our identification strategy relies on pre-determined migration networks and on the exogenous timing of the ban and of natural disasters. Using a panel of the universe of Indonesian villages and a triple difference approach, we demonstrate that poverty increases in the wake of natural disasters are higher in communities with strong ex-ante migration ties to Saudi Arabia after the ban was implemented. This highlights the importance of international migration as a climate change adaptation strategy.