Thesis Public Defense | VNP29 - Ngô Đức Duy

Migrant transfers and on-farm investment under climate stress

Student: Ngô Đức Duy, VNP-29

Supervisor: Dr. Binyam Demena & Dr. Hồ Quốc Thông

Abstract:

Rural households in Vietnam’s Central and Central Highlands provinces face frequent climate hazards that disrupt timely purchases of seeds, fertilizer, land preparation, irrigation, and hired labor. Meanwhile, rural-urban and international migration generate remittance inflows, which may ease short-term liquidity constraints. This study examines whether remittances increase farm input spending in normal years, whether climate shocks reduce such spending, and whether remittances offset these reductions. The analysis uses three waves of the Thailand-Vietnam Socio-Economic Panel (2013, 2016, and 2017) for Ha Tinh, Thua Thien Hue, and Dak Lak. The models use village-by-year leave-one-out averages of other households’ remittances as a network shifter and include household fixed effects to control for time-invariant differences. Results show that remittances increase input spending, while climate-related losses reduce it. The marginal benefit of remittances declines as losses increase. These findings remain robust after controlling for province-by-year shocks and alternative instrument specifications. By linking farm input expenditure to liquidity, risk, and productivity, this study offers policy-relevant evidence for climate-vulnerable, migration-active regions. Eventually, the findings suggest that reducing barriers to money transfers and providing timely, short-term liquidity during input periods can enhance the productive use of remittances and help maintain their role as insurance.

Keywords: Rural migration; remittances; climate shocks; agriculture; farming expenditure; informal insurance; TVSEP; NELM; leave-one-out.