At the Competence-Centre on Microeconomic Evaluation (CC-ME) we advise and support EU policy making through ex-post causal evaluation and data-driven microeconomic analysis. The CC-ME hosts a Microeconometric Seminar Series to promote discussions with external researchers from academia and other institutions. Our Seminar Series is intended to disseminate advanced research methodologies and topics in the field of microeconomic evaluation. To further disseminate the benefits of our Series across the JRC, we post a summary of the presented papers together with the presenters' views and opinions on their research and the future of the field of Applied Economics. |
Last week we had the pleasure of having Professor Bruno Conte from the University Pompeo Fabra present his work: Climate change and migration: the case of Africa.
In his work, Professor Conte investigates how future climate change will affect rural economies like sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in terms of migration and welfare, and how policymakers can enhance SSA's capacity to adapt to this process.
He uses a quantitative framework, coupled with rich spatial data and forecasts for the future climate, to estimate millions of climate migrants and unequal welfare losses across SSA.
He also investigates migration and trade policies as mitigating tools, and finds a trade-off associated with the former: reducing SSA migration barriers reduces aggregate welfare losses at the cost of more climate migration and high regional inequality.
Reducing tariffs attenuates this cost.
To learn more about Professor Bruno Conte's work and opinions about the future of the field of Applied Economics we asked him to briefly answer a series of questions. You can find his answers to each of our questions below.
Q: What attracted you to research the topics in your paper? A: The current climate change crisis and the vulnerability of developing, rural economies in that regard. |
Q: Where is the research area where your paper fits moving? A: First, combining applied methods (e.g., careful identification, plausible exogenous shifters in the data) with "structural projects" whose mechanics require pinning down many parameters/elasticities. |
Q: What, in your opinion, will the next breakthrough in Applied Economics be? A: Using AI in causal inference to expand even further the capabilities of machine learning in economic research. |
The CC-ME team would like to congratulate Professor Bruno Conte for his insightful research and thank her for presenting it in our Seminar Series.
For more information on the upcoming presentations and how to participate in our Seminar Series please visit our dedicated website.
| Originally Published | 19 Feb 2025 |
| Knowledge service | Metadata | Microeconomic Evaluation |