Internal labor migration as a shock-coping strategy: evidence from a typhoon∗

We analyze how internal labor migration facilitates shock-coping in rural economies. Employing highly precise satellite data, we identify objective vari-ations in the inundations generated by the most severe typhoon in Vietnam for decades, and match this treatment with a household panel survey before and after the shock. We find that, following the massive drop in income, households achieve to cope mainly through internal labor migration to urban areas: Households with settled migrants ex-ante receive more remittances. Non-migrant households react by sending new members away for work who earn less than established migrants, but remit similar amounts in the short-term