Migration Responses to Earthquakes: Evidence from Italy

In this paper, we analyze the migration responses to natural disasters by focusing on the three most devastating earthquakes in Italy in recent decades: L’Aquila 2009, Emilia Romagna 2012, and Central Italy 2016. Using municipality-level data for 2002– 2019 and adopting a new difference-in-difference approach with multiple periods and multiple groups, we evaluate the causal effect of these events on internal and international inbound and outbound migration of both Italian and foreign citizens. The results suggest that, despite the massive destruction, there is no evidence that these earthquakes significantly impacted the migration of Italian citizens. We only found evidence of the effect of the earthquake in L’Aquila on the short-distance migration of foreign citizens.