The economic impacts of climate change:: Evidence from agricultural output and random fluctuations in weather

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Deschenes, Olivier; Greenstone, Michael
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.1.354
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 354-385
• 关键词: us agriculture; matter

摘要

This paper measures the economic impact of climate change on US agricultural land by estimating the effect of random year-to-year variation in temperature and precipitation on agricultural profits. The preferred estimates indicate that climate change will increase annual profits by $1.3 billion in 2002 dollars (2002$) or 4 percent. This estimate is robust to numerous specification checks and relatively precise, so large negative or positive effects are unlikely. We also find the hedonic approach-which is the standard in the previous literature-to be unreliable because it produces estimates that are extremely sensitive to seemingly minor choices about control variables, sample, and weighting.