Modeling and experiments to better understand rural livelihoods decision-making
MIDAS
(Migration, Intensification, and Diversification as Adaptive Strategies)
How do people respond to changing opportunities in the places they live and elsewhere?
MIDAS was first developed in 2018, rooted in PPM (push-pull-mooring) theory, but has since been expanded to represent capabilities and aspirations, as well as place attachment.
MIDAS can be applied to particular contexts with applied policy questions - we've applied it to US-Mexico, to Senegal, to Bangladesh, and have a current application in Madagascar. It can also be set up as a toy model with toy data to explore hypothetical scenarios.
MIDAS simulates agents, embedded in social networks, living in places and deriving utility from portfolios of sources in those places. Agents regularly reconsider their options, and when the best thing for them is somewhere else, they move.
It is built in MATLAB, but we have long considered a port to Julia or other open-source platform. Please be in touch if this is something that would be of interest.
Publications
Bell, A., Calvo-Hernandez, C., & Oppenheimer, M. (2019). Migration , Intensification , and Diversification as Adaptive Strategies. Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling, 1, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.18174/sesmo.2019a16102
Choquette-levy, N., Cottier, F., Coumba, N., Gambo, A., Petit, V., Piguet, E., Sall, S., Visée, C., Sherbinin, A. De, & Reid, A. (2026). Aspirations in a warming world : Modeling migration and education decisions under climate risk in Senegal. 100(July). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103215
Bell, A. R., Wrathall, D. J., Mueller, V., Chen, J., Oppenheimer, M., Hauer, M., Adams, H., Kulp, S., Clark, P. U., Fussell, E., Magliocca, N., Xiao, T., Gilmore, E. A., Abel, K., Call, M., & Slangen, A. B. A. (2021). Migration towards Bangladesh coastlines projected to increase with sea-level rise through 2100. Environmental Research Letters, 16(2), 024045. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abdc5b