Resources for the Future Inc.
03/31/2026 | Press release | Archived content
Winters of Discontent
Winters of Discontent
This article examines how year-to-year variation in lake-effect snow influences county-level migration patterns in the US Great Lakes region.
Date
March 31, 2026
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Publication
Journal Article in Journal of Public EconomicsReading time
1 minuteAbstract
Do short-run weather shocks affect migration? I estimate how snow influences county-level migration in the Great Lakes region since 1970. I isolate responses to snow by comparing its effect on net migration across regions exposed to lake-effect snow (LES)-heavy snow generated downwind of the Great Lakes. Higher-than-average snowfall in lake-effect regions leads to net population loss the following year. This effect is driven by reductions in in-migrants, dissipates after 1-2 years, and is strongest for young and middle-aged populations. Snow has virtually no effect on migration in non-lake-effect regions, suggesting that baseline exposure interacts with anomalous weather events.
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