主 讲 人：郭士祺，上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院副教授

报告时间：2024年11月1日（星期五） 10：00-11：30

报告地点：经济学院一楼院史馆

报告题目：Rural-urban Migration and Agricultural Fires  

主讲人简介：郭士祺，上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院副教授。博士毕业于日内瓦国际关系及发展高等研究院，硕士毕业于西南财经大学，本科毕业于四川大学，曾在哈佛大学、联合国大学世界发展经济学研究所访问。主要研究领域为发展经济学、应用微观经济学，有多篇文章被国内外权威期刊发表，包括The Economic Journal，Journal of Development Economics，Games and Economic Behavior, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Comparative Economics,《经济研究》。主持国家自然科学基金青年项目，上海市浦江人才计划。

报告摘要： This paper examines the impact of rural-urban migration on agricultural fires, a notable source of air pollution in China. Using county-level data from the 2010 Population Census and satellite imagery, we show that a one-percentage-point increase in the rural labor emigration rate in 2010 leads to a 5% increase in detected agricultural fires from 2011 to 2017. This rise is due to the burning of crop straw residues as a labor-saving method for field clearance when agricultural labor is scarce. Our findings confirm this mechanism, indicating that the effect is mainly driven by rural emigrants, is weaker for those working nearby, and is more pronounced during busy harvesting seasons and in areas with higher grain production and extensive use of agricultural machinery. To address potential endogeneity concerns, we employ an instrumental variable approach, leveraging the exogenous shift in trade policy between China and the U.S. as a pull factor for rural emigration. Furthermore, we discover that land titling reforms significantly reduce agricultural fires associated with decreased rural labor, proving to be more effective than administrative bans on burning. Overall, our study highlights the unintended negative externalities of rural-urban migration and the complex relationship between migration and pollution in developing countries.