Weather shocks pose many challenges for workers in developing countries. International migration can work as a coping mechanism for this reality. The legal status of migrants is critical to understand the effect of these shocks on workers' well-being. In this paper, we study the effect of weather shocks on legal and illegal migration from rural Mexico to the United States. First, we find that weather shocks in the wet season increase migration. The increase is entirely driven by illegal migrants. Second, we propose a mechanism to explain this result: the effect of weather on agricultural production. We find that weather shocks decrease total harvested land and corn production. Third, we show that young and unwealthy workers are more sensitive to weather shocks. Lastly, we use our estimates to have a first glance at climate change’s impact on migration. We find that climate change would increase illegal migration significantly.

Since 2010, the Uruguayan government has fostered the installation of solar panels among firms to promote the production of small-scale renewable electricity. Under this policy, firms that have installed solar panels are allowed to feed any electricity surplus into the grid. Using a novel dataset on firm-level electricity consumption and grid feed-in, we study the economic and environmental consequences of this policy. First, we find that installing a solar panel substantially reduces the amount of electricity extracted from the grid. Second, we find that it increases the electricity injected into the grid. Third, we find that it reduces CO2 emissions only marginally. Fourth, we provide evidence of a rebound effect: electricity consumption increases between 20% and 26% after the solar panel installation. Lastly, we propose an alternative policy that allows firms to store their electricity surplus in batteries instead of immediately injecting it into the grid. This policy would further reduce CO2 emissions by 2.7%, allowing electricity injection into the grid at night when fossil fuel facilities satisfy most of the electricity demand. We use firm-level data to study the effects of a net-metering policy, showing what countries can expect from implementing such a policy.

The agricultural sector is the primary water consumer in the US. Groundwater is one of its main sources, with 65% of irrigated farmland relying on groundwater for their water supply. Groundwater use presents a common pool problem: if a farmer pumps groundwater, she decreases the aquifer’s water table and thus increases the cost of pumping for farmers in the same aquifer. Studying such a problem is challenging due to a lack of markets and data on groundwater use. In this paper, I leverage detailed farmer-level data on (ground)water use, crop choices, and crop yields to study the equilibrium implications of the current groundwater costs. I focus on the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska. In order to estimate the effect of water costs on water use and crop choices, I combine a crop-growth model with an economic model. I use the crop-growth model to recover the precise relation between water use and crop yields. I use the economic model to estimate the marginal cost of water for farmers. I then quantify how farmers respond to water costs by switching which crop they plant or changing the water use per planted crop. I find that farmers are inelastic to water costs: a 10% increase in the water cost would decrease water use by 3%. Moreover, I find that farmers adapt to higher water costs by both reducing the water use per planted crop and fallowing the land. Lastly, I utilize my estimates to compute the optimal and sustainable tax on groundwater use.