| Hello, *|NOME|* Natural disasters can have long-term impacts on the lives of families and individuals thereby affected. Riverine populations harmed by river floods, residents of risk areas who lose their homes in landslides, small landowners in the hinterland who lose their herd due to excessive rainfall or drought are examples of situations triggered by extreme weather events. To the extent that the poorest families are usually the most affected, IMDS has been interested in projects that explore the effects of extreme natural events on social mobility. Natural disasters seem to be occurring with greater frequency and severity in which the recent case in Rio Grande do Sul is just one example. In the world, these extreme phenomena have also occurred, such as the recent tragedy in Libya. Thus, it makes sense to develop research that is able to evaluate and point out best practices for public policies in the face of these events. In particular, those that focus on the most vulnerable groups. Can cash transfer programs, with the proper design, function as insurance against the risks associated with extreme weather events for low-income families, mitigating short-term effects and avoiding permanent consequences on the affected population? Do beneficiaries of cash transfer programs, such as Bolsa Família, react to these events differently from non-beneficiaries? At IMDS, studies in partnership with researchers Vinícius Schuabb, a doctoral student in Public Policy at Bocconi University (Milan, Italy) and Valdemar Neto, a professor at the Brazilian School of Economics and Finance (FGV EPGE) and coordinator of the Center for Empirical Studies in Economics (FGV CEEE), will analyze the effects of natural disasters on migration. The association between natural disasters and migration is well known in the literature. There are extensive studies on migration between different regions of the same country, as well as to other countries. Less frequent are works that explore the interaction between living in a location affected by a weather event and being a beneficiary of an income transfer program. For this research we have developed a new database that links monthly precipitation indices, made available by the Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) project, with all ZIP codes in Brazil georeferenced between January 1981 and December 2019. The use of meshes with precipitation information in extensions of 5km by 5km for the entire national territory allows us to observe with great precision the individuals directly affected by the variations of precipitation indices over time. Alternatively, as a test of the robustness of the results, we have used the indicators derived from the records of natural disasters made available by the federal government in the Integrated Disaster Information System (S2iD), compiled by the current Ministry of Integration and Regional Development. The preliminary results, with a panel of low-income individuals enrolled in the Cadastro Único between 2016 and 2019, indicate that recipients of Bolsa-Família benefits migrate less frequently than non-recipients, after periods with extreme variations in local precipitation rates. This result may suggest that the benefits represent an important source of income used for risk mitigation in moments of extreme vulnerability of individuals, given that the migration decision is, in most cases, a last resort for the reestablishment of affected individuals. The impact of extreme weather events is very different depending on their characterization, and the design of government support should contemplate these different effects. In rural areas, where income is predominantly derived from agricultural activity, climate variation tends to directly affect household income. In urban households, the negative income shock is not the only factor inducing the migration decision. The loss of housing or the destruction of all the infrastructure around the housing are factors as relevant or more relevant than the impact on income in the decision-making of the populations victimized by the disaster.
The research project contemplates special care with the correct modeling of the decision-making processes in each case. The data seem to show that urban and rural areas present significant differences in how extreme weather events affect individuals and, thus, their subsequent decisions. This study is still in its preliminary stage. Much of the team's effort to date has been to build the database, and to prepare the panel of individuals for econometric investigation. Weather shocks occur periodically and may even become more frequent. Because the poor live in places with more precarious infrastructure than the rich and have less protection against income volatility, they are the main victims of climate disasters. Thinking about climatic events from the perspective of hindering social mobility is necessary for the construction of better and more efficient public policies. Until the next “Letter from IMDS”! Paulo Tafner CEO | 
