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Paolantonio, Adriana

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Last updated:December 8, 2025
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Adriana Paolantonio is an Economist for the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS), the World Bank’s flagship household survey program housed at the Development Data Group. Her research focuses on agriculture and rural development, climate adaptation, and migration, as well as on improving survey methods in these domains. Before joining the LSMS team, Adriana worked at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), where she led and co-led several impact assessments of rural development interventions, and at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), where she conducted research on climate-smart agriculture. Adriana holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Rome Tor Vergata and a master’s degree in Cooperation and Development from the University of Pavia.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10986/44048

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    Climate Immobility Traps: A Household-Level Test
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-03-19) Letta, Marco; Montalbano, Pierluigi; Paolantonio, Adriana
    The complex relationship between climate shocks, migration, and adaptation hampers a rigorous understanding of the heterogeneous mobility outcomes of farm households exposed to climate risk. To unpack this heterogeneity, the analysis combines longitudinal multi-topic household survey data from Nigeria with a causal machine learning approach, tailored to a conceptual framework bridging economic migration theory and the poverty traps literature. The results show that pre-shock asset levels, in situ adaptive capacity, and cumulative shock exposure drive not just the magnitude but also the sign of the impact of agriculture-relevant weather anomalies on the mobility outcomes of farming households. While local adaptation acts as a substitute for migration, the roles played by wealth constraints and repeated shock exposure suggest the presence of climate-induced immobility traps.
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    Too Rare to Dare?: Leveraging Household Surveys to Boost Research on Climate Migration
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-11-28) Carletto, Gero; Letta, Marco; Montalbano, Pierluigi; Paolantonio, Adriana; Zezza, Alberto
    Reliable microeconomic data to understand the climate-migration nexus are virtually nonexistent. Nationally representative multitopic household surveys are rarely, if ever, explicitly designed for studying migration issues. Despite this limitation, most countries have no alternatives to the use of household surveys when it comes to analyzing complex multidimensional phenomena such as the interrelationship between climate change and migration. This paper offers a critical reflection on current challenges faced by multi-topic household surveys in responding to this need, but also, more importantly, on the many opportunities embedded in their use. Specifically, using the Living Standards Measurement Study as a case study, a conceptual framework, practical empirical guidance, and a methodological agenda are proposed to address data gaps and contribute to a more solid understanding of the climate-migration nexus.
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    Understanding the Climate Change-Migration Nexus through the Lens of Household Surveys: An Empirical Review to Assess Data Gaps
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06) Letta, Marco; Montalbano, Pierluigi; Paolantonio, Adriana
    Over the past two decades, the causal relationship between climate change and migration has gained increasing prominence on the international political agenda. Despite recent advances in both conceptual frameworks and applied techniques, the empirical evidence does not provide clear-cut conclusions, mainly due to the intrinsic complexity of the phenomena of interest, the irreducible heterogeneity of the transmission mechanisms, some common misconceptions, and, in particular, the paucity of adequate data. This data-oriented review first summarizes the findings of the most recent empirical literature and identifies the main insights as well as the most important mediating channels and contextual factors. Then, it discusses open issues and assesses the main data gaps that currently prevent more robust quantifications. Finally, the paper highlights opportunities for exploring these research questions, exploiting the potential of the existing multi-topic and multi-purpose household survey data sets, such as those produced by the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study. The paper focuses on the Living Standards Measurement Study–Integrated Surveys on Agriculture program to discuss potential improvements for integrating standard household surveys with additional modules and data sources.