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Economics of Climate Change: Coping with Shocks in Mongolia – Vulnerability, Assets and Migration (Shocks Mongolia)

Completed Project

Project Management

Kati Krähnert

Project Period

March 1, 2012 - June 30, 2016

Commissioned by

Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), BMBF-No.: 01LA1126A

In Cooperation With

National Statistical Office of Mongolia (NSO)

This project analyzes the impact of climate shocks on the livelihoods and welfare of households in Mongolia. Our analysis particularly focuses on extreme weather events, locally called dzud disasters (see box below). As a consequence of climate change and global warming, it is very likely that climate shocks, such as dzud, will occur more frequently and with greater intensity. As part of the project, we will conduct a unique household panel survey in western Mongolia. Using micro econometric techniques, the project explores the strategies of households to cope with climate shocks and the effects of climate shocks on inequality. Understanding how households at the micro-level are affected by and cope with climate shocks is an important prerequisite for formulating policies that strengthen household-level resilience and prevent distress migration.

Former members

Publications

Aim of the project

This project analyzes the impact of climate shocks on the livelihoods and welfare of households in Mongolia. Our analysis particularly focuses on extreme weather events, locally called dzud disasters (see box below). As a consequence of climate change and global warming, it is very likely that climate shocks, such as dzud, will occur more frequently and with greater intensity. As part of the project, we will conduct a unique household panel survey in western Mongolia. Using micro econometric techniques, the project explores the strategies of households to cope with climate shocks and the effects of climate shocks on inequality. Understanding how households at the micro-level are affected by and cope with climate shocks is an important prerequisite for formulating policies that strengthen household-level resilience and prevent distress migration.

Dzud disasters are severe winter conditions with onsets of cold and snow that escalate livestock mortality. In Mongolia, severe dzuds have been occurring with an average frequency of every eight years since the beginning of meteorological recording in the 1950s. Since the late 1990s, the frequency of zuds has increased, with devastating consequences. Dzuds reduced the national livestock population by almost 30 percent during consecutive dzuds occurring between 1999 and 2002. During the winter of 2009/2010, more than 8 million livestock died, about 17 percent of the national livestock population. The increased frequency and intensity of dzuds in Mongolia is often attributed to climate change, although the exact causal relationship between individual weather events and global climatic trends cannot be proven by definition.

Innovation
The project addresses gaps in the current state of knowledge regarding the costs and risks of climate change from the micro-perspective of affected households. It identifies the channels through which climate shocks interrelate with rural livelihoods and lead households to adapt. We achieve this objective by employing different conceptualizations of dzud (perceived and actual, based on meteorological recordings), different units of analysis (individual, household, and groups), and different time horizons (short, medium, and long). A unique, high quality, household survey dataset will be collected, specially designed to investigating the impact of climate shocks, thus contributing to enlarging the database for empirical research on climate shocks.

Work schedule
Based on this new database, the following research questions will be addressed:

  • The impact of climate shocks on household well-being
  • Climate shocks and children's health
  • Migration, transfer income and risk management strategies
  • Consumption smoothing, income smoothing and asset smoothing
  • Social capital and risk management
  • Economic mobility and inequality in a risky environment
  • Climate shocks and poverty traps
  • Climate shocks and distress migration

Applicability and usage of project results
The project aims at deriving evidence-based insights and discussing policy implications regarding the individual, local and national adaptation to climate shocks. One focus will be on policies that assist households in strengthening their resilience against climate shocks, thus preventing distress migration. The project will also outline the applicability of the project findings and policy options to other economies in which households' livelihoods are strongly dependent on climatic conditions.

Coping with Shocks in Mongolia Household Panel Survey

The project team at DIW Berlin implemented the Coping with Shocks in Mongolia Household Panel Survey in partnership with the National Statistical Office of Mongolia (NSO). The sample comprises 1,768 households in the three provinces (aimags) of Zavkhan, Govi-Altai, und Uvs in western Mongolia. The survey covers 49 out of 61 districts (soums) in these three provinces.

Map showing the survey region in western Mongolia

Source: DIW Berlin

The survey is based on a multi-stage design that ensures the sample is representative of the population in western Mongolia. More precisely, the sample is representative of each of the three provinces; of rural areas in the three provinces; of urban areas in the three provinces; of rural areas in each of the three provinces; and of urban areas in each of the three provinces. The 2010 Population and Housing Census provides the sampling frame.

Each household was interviewed three times between 2012 and 2015. The household survey data were collected continuously throughout the year, with interviews for the first wave taking place between June 2012 and May 2013. On average, 145 households were interviewed each month. Each household was then interviewed again 12 and 24 months later for the second and third survey waves. The continuous approach of collecting data allowed us to employ the same field team, consisting of nine interviewers, three supervisors, and three drivers, for the duration of three years.

The household questionnaire includes questions on the demographic characteristics of each household member (e.g. age, gender, education, health), exposure to extreme weather events (e.g. retrospective questions on the dzuds of 1999-2002 and 2009/2010, perceptions of the risk of future climate shocks), risk management strategies (e.g. migration and remittances, formal and informal insurance, migration), welfare outcomes (e.g. consumption, income, assets, food security, child anthropometrics), and policy-related variables (e.g. access to emergency aid during extreme weather events, cash transfers, market access). In addition, a community questionnaire and a community price questionnaire were used.

Of the 1,768 sample households interviewed in the first panel wave, 1,744 and 1,733 households were re-interviewed in the second and third panel wave, respectively. Thus, the attrition rate between the first and third wave is 2.01 %. The survey team tracked panel households that moved to the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, where 12 and 16 households were interviewed in the second and the third wave, respectively. The low attrition rate is particularly remarkable given that more than half of the sample households follow a nomadic livelihood.

Number of sample households and attrited households

© DIW Berlin

Source: DIW Berlin

The Coping with Shocks in Mongolia Household Panel Survey data are available to the scientific community for research purposes. To comply with the data protection laws of Mongolia, researchers may be provided an anonymized version of the data from which all personal identifiers as well as all locational information below the province level are removed. Interested researchers may apply for data access using this Form (DOCX, 14.37 KB).

The data should be cited as follows:

Kraehnert, Kati; Lehmann-Uschner, Katharina; Groppo, Valeria; and Bertram-Huemmer, Veronika (2017): Coping with Shocks in Mongolia Panel Survey, Waves 1-3. Version 1.0. German Institute for Economic Research and National Statistical Office of Mongolia. The data collection was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, research grant 01LA1126A.

Questionnaires

Wave 1


Wave 2


Wave 3


Survey-Dokumentation

Kati Krähnert (project leader) studied Social Anthropology and Economics at Free University Berlin and Wake Forest University and obtained her PhD in Agricultural Economics from Humboldt University in 2010. Her research interests include development economics, the economics of climate change, and household behavior in risky environments.

Veronika Bertram-Hümmer (researcher, 03/2012 - 06/2016) Veronika focused on inclusive microfinance solutions and households’ behavior under risk. In her PhD research, she evaluated the impacts of the index-based livestock insurance on herders’ well-being in Mongolia. Before joining DIW, Veronika was a Carlo Schmid Fellow in the World Bank Social Development Department focusing on poverty and social impact analysis. She also has experience in the banking sector and she was visiting fellow at several international institutions focusing on the fields of development and research. Veronika earned a Master’s in Economics (Diplom Volkswirtin) from Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen.

Katharina Lehmann (researcher) studied International Relations at the Technical University of Dresden and the AlKalamoon University in Syria and International Economics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. In her master thesis, Katharina analyzed how Ethiopian small-scale farmers adapt to climate change. Her research interests include development microeconomics, behavior under risk and uncertainty, environmental economics and climate shocks.

Valeria Groppo (researcher) holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Milan (Italy) and a Master in Development Economics from the University of Sussex, Brighton (UK). Before joining DIW Berlin, she worked as an intern at the ILO's Trade and Employment Programme and as a consultant for the WTO's Economic Research Division in Geneva. Her main research interests are in the area of development microeconomics, with a focus on migration.

Amartuvshin Tserennadmid (guest researcher, 09/2015 - 01/2016) holds a Master degree in Economics from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and a Bachelor degree in Statistics and Economics from the National University of Mongolia. Amartuvshin has worked at the National Statistical Office of Mongolia from 1999 to 2009, where she supervised the implementation of household surveys, among other things. Since 2011, she has been working as a lecturer and researcher at the National University of Mongolia. Her main research interests include welfare and poverty analyses. She was awarded a scholarship from the Open Society Foundations to join DIW Berlin as a guest researcher.

Academic Workshops

Workshop on “Analyzing the Impact of Extreme Weather Events from a Microeconomic Perspective”

The third academic project workshop "Analyzing the Impact of Extreme Weather Events from a Microeconomic Perspective" took place in Berlin on June 27th, 2016.
For more information, please click here. (PDF, 113.68 KB)

The second project workshop "Analyzing Extreme Weather Events from a Microeconomic Perspective" took place in Berlin on March 9th, 2015. For more information, please click here. (PDF, 100.08 KB)

The first project workshop "Climate Shocks and Household Behavior" took place in Berlin on December 12th, 2013. For more information, please click here. (PDF, 89.06 KB)

Policy Workshops

On September 2nd, 2016 DIW Berlin and NSO jointly organized a policy workshop in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. During the workshop, project staff presented the Coping with Shocks in Mongolia Household Panel Survey, research results derived from the data, as well as policy implications. For more information, please click here. (PDF, 50.42 KB)
News coverage of the workshop aired by the TV stations sbn, tv5, eh oron tv, vtv, and MNB can be found here.

The kick-off workshop took place in Ulaanbaatar on May 23rd, 2012.

Veronika Bertram-Hümmer receives the University Meets Microfinance Award

Privat (Copyright)

Veronika Bertram-Hümmer, formerly researcher at the Department Development and Security and the PhD Student at the DIW Graduate Centre, has been honored for her research with the University Meets Microfinance Award. The outstanding section of her doctoral dissertation was also published as a DIW Discussion Paper | PDF, 0.9 MB in collaboration with Kati Krähnert, Head of Development and Security. Their research demonstrates that an index-based weather insurance can help households in developing countries, such as Mongolia, to cope with the financial consequences of extreme weather changes.

Newsletter

Our regular project newsletter reported about the progress of the project, new outcomes, events, and news from our partners.

You can download all previous issues here:

Newsletter 1 | PDF, 260.47 KB
Newsletter 2 | PDF, 203.62 KB
Newsletter 3 | PDF, 258.42 KB

  • Does Index Insurance Help Households Recover from Disaster? Evindence from IBLI Mongolia
    Kati Krähnert, Veronika Bertram-Hümmer
    Dessimination Workshop for the Project "Coping with Shocks in Mongolia
    Ulaanbaatar, 02.09.2016
  • Food Intake and the Role of Food Self-Provisioning
    Kati Krähnert, Katharina Lehmann-Uschner
    Dessimination Workshop for the Project "Coping with Shocks in Mongolia
    Ulaanbaatar, 02.09.2016
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Education
    Kati Krähnert, Valeria Groppo
    Dessimination Workshop for the Project "Coping with Shocks in Mongolia
    Ulaanbaatar, 02.09.2016
  • Extreme Weather Events and Child Height: Evidence from Mongolia
    Kati Krähnert, Valeria Groppo
    Dessimination Workshop for the Project "Coping with Shocks in Mongolia
    Ulaanbaatar, 02.09.2016
  • Welcome and Introduction of the Project "Coping with Shocks in Mongolia": Collecting Household Survey Data in Mongolia: How to Keep Attrition Low
    Kati Krähnert
  • Workshop on Analyzing the Impact of Extreme Weather Events from a Microeconomic Perspective: Final Workshop of the Research Project "Coping with Shocks in Mongolia"
    Berlin, 27.06.2016
  • Does index insurance help households recover from disaster? Evidence from IBLI Mongolia
    Kati Krähnert
    Workshop on Analyzing the Impact of Extreme Weather Events from a Microeconomic Perspective: Final Workshop of the Research Project "Coping with Shocks in Mongolia"
    Berlin, 27.06.2016
  • Does index insurance help households recover from disaster? Evidence from IBLI Mongolia
    Kati Krähnert
    Research Group on Development Economics, German Economic Association
    Heidelberg, 03.06.2016
  • Does index insurance help households recover from disaster? Evidence from IBLI Mongolia
    Veronika Bertram-Hümmer
    11th International Microinsurance Conference 2015
    Casablanca, 05.11.2015
  • Does index insurance help households recover from disaster? Evidence from IBLI Mongolia
    Kati Krähnert
    CEAR Academic Pre-Conference in Microinsurance 2015
    Casablanca, 02.11.2015
  • Weather Shocks and Education in Mongolia
    Valeria Groppo
    Ökonomische Entwicklung – Theorie und Politik: Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2015
    Münster, 06.09.2015 - 09.09.2015
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Child Health
    Valeria Groppo
    30th Annual Congress of the European Economic Association
    Mannheim, 24. - 27.08.2015
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Child Health
    Valeria Groppo
    Nordic Conference on Development Economics 2015
    Kopenhagen, 15. - 16.06.2015
  • Food Intake and the Role of Food Self-Provisioning
    Katharina Lehman-Uschner
    Nordic Conference on Development Economics 2015
    Kopenhagen, 15. - 16.06.2015
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Child Health
    Valeria Groppo
    Jahrestagung des Ausschuss für Entwicklungsländer, Verein für Socialpolitik
    Kiel, 12. - 13.06.2015
  • Does index insurance help households recover from disaster? Evidence from IBLI Mongolia
    Veronika Bertram-Hümmer
    16th Joint Seminar of the European Association of Law and Economics (EALE) and the Geneva Association (GA)
    Berlin, 28. - 29.05.2015
  • Food Intake and the Role of Food Self-Provisioning
    Katharina Lehmann
    PhD-Workshop des Development Economics Network Berlin (DENeB)
    Berlin, 13.03.2015
  • Extreme Weather Events and Education in Mongolia
    Valeria Groppo
    Analyzing Extreme Weather Events from a Microeconomic Perspective : Workshop of the Research Project "Coping with Shocks in Mongolia"
    Berlin, 09.03.2015
  • Food Intake and the Role of Food Self-Provisioning
    Katharina Lehmann, Kati Krähnert
    Analyzing Extreme Weather Events from a Microeconomic Perspective : Workshop of the Research Project "Coping with Shocks in Mongolia"
    Berlin, 09.03.2015
  • Index Insurance and Disaster Recovery : Evidence from Mongolia
    Veronika Bertram-Hümmer
    Analyzing Extreme Weather Events from a Microeconomic Perspective : Workshop of the Research Project "Coping with Shocks in Mongolia"
    Berlin, 09.03.2015
  • Does index insurance help households recover from disaster? Evidence from IBLI Mongolia
    Veronika Bertram-Hümmer
    Forschungsseminar der Wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Hannover
    Hannover, 28.01.2015
  • Does index insurance help households recover from disaster? Evidence from IBLI Mongolia
    Veronika Bertram-Hümmer
    International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University
    New York, 07.01.2015
  • Does index insurance help households recover from disaster? Evidence from IBLI Mongolia
    Veronika Bertram-Hümmer
    Allied Social Science Associations Annual Meeting 2015
    Boston, 03. - 05.01.2015
  • Index-Based Livestock Insurance and Post-disaster Recovery in Mongolia
    Veronika Bertram-Hümmer
    Development and Security Seminar: Index-Based Livestock Insurance and Post-disaster Recovery in Mongolia
    Berlin, 15.12.2014
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Child Health
    Kati Krähnert
    Women in Science: Seminarreihe des Leibniz-Zentrums für Marine Tropenökologie (ZMT)
    Bremen, 17.09.2014
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Child Health
    Kati Krähnert
    Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik
    Hamburg, 07.09.2014
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Child Health
    Valeria Groppo
    Annual Congress of the European Economic Association
    Toulouse, France, 25.08.2014
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Child Health
    Kati Krähnert
    Seminar Series on Research in Development Economics
    Berlin, 17.07.2014
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Child Health
    Kati Krähnert
    Entwicklungsausschuss des Vereins für Socialpolitik
    Passau, 27.06.2014
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Child Health
    Kati Krähnert
    European Society for Population Economics
    Braga, Portugal, 18.06.2014
  • The Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Child Health
    Kati Krähnert
    Entwicklungsökonomisches Seminar am Institut für Weltwirtschaft
    Kiel, 22.04.2014
  • Index-Based Insurance and Disaster Risk Resilience in Mongolian Herder Communities
    Veronika Bertram-Hümmer
    2nd Research Workshop on Microinsurance : Munich Re Foundation, University of Munich
    München, 19.03.2014

Topics: Climate policy , Health , Inequality , Migration

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