Climate Change and Agriculture: Subsistence Farmers' Response to Extreme Heat

Fernando M. Aragón, Francisco Oteiza and Juan Pablo Rud

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2021, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-35

Abstract: This paper examines how subsistence farmers respond to extreme heat. Using microdata from Peruvian households, we find that high temperatures reduce agricultural productivity, increase area planted, and change crop mix. These findings are consistent with farmers using input adjustments as a short-term mechanism to attenuate the effect of extreme heat on output. This response seems to complement other coping strategies, such as selling livestock, but exacerbates the drop in yields, a standard measure of agricultural productivity. Using our estimates, we show that accounting for land adjustments is important to quantify damages associated with climate change.

JEL-codes: O12 O13 Q11 Q12 Q15 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (70)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20190316 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E117742V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20190316.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20190316.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:13:y:2021:i:1:p:1-35

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/pol.20190316

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy is currently edited by Matthew Shapiro

More articles in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().