Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-2018
Publication Title
World Development
Abstract
Projections suggest that the damages from climate change will be substantial for developing countries. Understanding the ability of households in these countries to adapt to climate change is critical in order to determine the magnitude of the potential damages. In this paper, I investigate the ability of farmers in India to adapt to higher temperatures. I use a methodology that exploits short-term weather fluctuations as well as spatial variation in long-run climate. Specifically, I estimate how damaging high temperatures are for districts that experience high temperatures more or less frequently. I find that the losses from high temperatures are lower in heat-prone districts, a result that is consistent with adaptation. However, while adaptation appears to be modestly effective for moderate levels of heat, my results suggest that adaptation to extreme heat is much more difficult. Extremely high temperatures do grave damage to crops, even in places that experience these temperature extremes regularly. The persistence of negative impacts of high temperatures, even in areas that experience high temperatures frequently, underscores the need for development policies that emphasize risk mitigation and explicitly account for climate-change-related risks.
Keywords
Adaptation, Climate change, Agriculture, India, Crop choice
Volume
112
First Page
205
Last Page
219
DOI
doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.08.006
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Rights
Licensed to Smith College and distributed CC-BY under the Smith College Faculty Open Access Policy.
Recommended Citation
Taraz, Vis, "Can Farmers Adapt to Higher Temperatures? Evidence from India" (2018). Economics: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/eco_facpubs/28
Comments
Peer reviewed accepted manuscript.